WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

6-10 November 2017

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Webinar series to focus on educating on climate literacy and energy issues -- The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) recently announced that they are launching a series of webinars intended to showcase their work at building a community more educated on climate change and energy issues. The first seminar will be on Thursday afternoon (9 November 2017) when they will cover educational resources available for the study of climate and energy. This topic may be very useful for school science teachers. The CLEAN network was launched in November 2010 as a new National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Pathways project. [NOAA Climate.gov Teaching Climate]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2017 Campaign commences -- The eleventh in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2017 will commence this Friday (10 November) and continue through Sunday, 19 November. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation (Pegasus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus in the Southern Hemisphere) with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The next and final series in the 2017 campaign is scheduled for 9-18 December 2017. [GLOBE at Night]
Free admission into the National Parks -- The National Park Service has been designated Veterans Day (Saturday, 11 November 2017) as being a part of its fee-free days program, which in this case is to honor the nation's veterans. This fee waiver will cover entrance and commercial tour fees in many of the national parks and monuments administered by the Park Service. [National Park Service Fee Free Days] Special observances for veterans will be held at several military parks, battlefields and historic sites. [National Park Service Military Honor]
Linking weather and climate -- Read this week's Supplemental Information.. In Greater Depth for a description the distinction between atmospheric conditions that can be considered as weather events, which may last for time spans of up to a week, from those events with longer time spans of a month to three months that can be considered within the ream of climate analysis or forecasting.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Smallest Antarctic "ozone hole" in 29 years attributed to a warm stratosphere -- Researchers with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center report that their analysis of ozonesonde and satellite data shows the Antarctic "ozone hole," or the region of low ozone concentrations in the stratosphere that forms in austral spring over Antarctica, reached its peak size on 11 September 2017, before beginning to decline in size. The peak size in mid-September was only 7.6 million square miles (or nearly 2.5 times the size of the 48 contiguous United States), which was the smallest amount of ozone depletion since 1988. The scientists claim that this season's small hole was due to warm air in the polar stratosphere that resulted in a stratospheric circulation pattern with fewer high-altitude clouds. Presence of these high-altitude clouds tends to support chemical reactions that can destroy ozone. [NOAA News] [NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research News]
A 37-second video made at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows the development of the 2017 Antarctic ozone hole beginning in July. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Feature] Images showing the size and intensity of the ozone hole over Antarctica in mid September and again in October 2017 were generated from data collected by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) onboard NASA's Aura satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]
New maps of Greenland reveal more glaciers are at risk -- A team of researchers from NASA and numerous research institutions in academia recently published new high-resolution relief maps of Greenland's coastal seafloor and bedrock revealing that two to four times as many coastal glaciers are at risk of accelerated melting as previously thought. The maps were produced from data collected by NASA's Ocean Melting Greenland (OMG) campaign and NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne surveys, [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]

CLIMATE FORCING

The global reach of atmospheric rivers is estimated -- Scientists from NASA and their colleagues from several research institutions have estimated the global impacts that "atmospheric rivers" have upon the precipitation patterns and upon the world's population. Atmospheric rivers are relatively narrow plumes of humid air containing bands of clouds and embedded storm systems that are carried along by upper tropospheric winds across large ocean basins from subtropical latitudes toward midlatitude landmasses. These scientists found that globally, precipitation from atmospheric rivers contributes 22 percent of the total water that flows across Earth's land surfaces. This contribution can exceed 50 percent in certain regions, such as along the west and east coasts of North America; Southeast Asia; and New Zealand. Usually, these impacts arise from only a few atmospheric river storms each year. Occurrence of atmospheric rivers can increase the incidence of floods by 80 percent in those area, while the absence of atmospheric rivers can increase occurrence of droughts by up to 90 percent. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]
Stronger winds could increase contribution of East Antarctica glacier to sea level rise -- Researchers from the University of Texas and their colleagues from Australia claim that when winds over the Southern Ocean are strong, the Totten Glacier, the largest glacier in East Antarctica, is melted from below by relatively warm deep ocean water displacing the surface waters carried away by the winds. This upwelling warm water is pulled up onto the continental shelf and flows under the ice where the melting takes place. The glacier holds more than 11 feet of sea level rise and acts as a plug to help lock in the ice of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. They also warm that a changing climate is expected to cause an increase in wind intensity over the Southern Ocean through at least the end of the century. [University of Texas News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Canadian national seasonal outlook issued -- Forecasters with Environment Canada issued their outlooks for temperature and precipitation across Canada for November 2017 through January 2018, which represents the last month of meteorological autumn and the first two months of meteorological winter. The temperature outlook indicates that a large section of Canada should experience below normal (1981-2010) temperatures for these three months. This region would extend from British Columbia eastward across the Prairie Provinces eastward to Manitoba and then northward across Hudson Bay and eastern sections of the Nunavut Territory. Above average temperatures for the November through January span are expected across northern sections of the Yukon and Northwest Territories along with sections of southeastern Canada extending eastward from the Great Lakes to the Maritime Provinces. Elsewhere, near normal temperatures are forecast.
The Canadian precipitation outlook for late autumn 2017 and the start of the 2017-18 winter season indicates below average precipitation should be anticipated across scattered areas of British Columbia and the southern Yukon Territory in western Canada and across eastern Canada, extending from Labrador northward to Ellesmere Island. On the other hand, large sections of the Prairie Provinces, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland should experience above average precipitation for the upcoming three months. Elsewhere, near average precipitation should be expected.
[Note for comparisons and continuity with the three-month seasonal outlooks of temperature and precipitation generated for the continental United States and Alaska by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, one would need to use Environment Canada's probabilistic forecasts for temperature and precipitation.]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Amazon rainforests generate their own wet season -- Using water vapor data collected from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument onboard NASA's Aura satellite in a numerical computer model, researchers from NASA and research institutions in the US, China and France have found that transpiration from trees in the Amazon rainforests provides sufficient atmospheric water vapor to create a rainy season across the southern Amazon valley. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Satellite detecting life in Benguela Current -- A natural-color image generated from data collected in early September by the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Aqua satellite show chlorophyll-rich water that is upwelling along the coast of southwestern Africa due to the northward flowing Benguela Current. A map of the region has been generated using MODIS data showing the amount of chlorophyll that can be found along the coasts of South Africa, Namibia and Angola due to the upwelling. [NASA Earth Observatory]
New database "atlas" reveals vast planetary microscopic communities -- Scientists with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological have taken part in a massive global research collaboration known as the Earth Microbiome Project (EMP) that recently released the first reference database, or atlas, of microbes covering the seven continents and surrounding oceans. EMP is a massive international collaborative effort designed to characterize the taxonomy and functional diversity of microbial life on planet Earth. [NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]

CLIMATE AND HUMAN HEALTH

New tool is released that helps prepare and protect vulnerable populations from extreme heat -- Researchers at NOAA and ESRI, an international commercial vendor of geographic information system (GIS) software, have developed a new tool for the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) that is designed to help users plan and prepare for the increasing extreme heat events and the human health impacts (including economic impacts). NIHHIS, led by NOAA's Climate Program Office in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), was created to address the increase of heat extremes. The new tool contains a story map with several powerful tools that can also be used as stand-alone analytical web apps. [NOAA NESDIS News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Improving public safety during extreme weather events and other disasters -- Two reports were recently issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that propose steps to improve public safety and resilience in the face of extreme weather and other disasters. One of the reports, entitled "Emergency Alert and Warning Systems: Current Knowledge and Future Research Directions" examines how government systems such as Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) and Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) will need to evolve as technology advances. The other report, "Integrating Social and Behavioral Sciences Within the Weather Enterprise" emphasizes the need for government agencies, industry, and academic institutions involved in the weather enterprise to work together to more actively engage social and behavioral scientists, to make greater progress in protecting life and enhancing prosperity. [The National Academies News]
Findings of the US Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Reports highlighted -- Late last week, the U.S. Global Change Research Program announced major milestones for three reports. The first report is the "Climate Science Special Report, Volume I of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4)" that is an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States. [Climate Science Special Report]
The second report is a call for public comment on NCA4 Vol. II. The "Climate Change Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States – Third Draft Order." The third report involves a call for public comment on the "2nd State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR-2)." [GlobalChange.gov]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

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.

Historical Events:

6 November 1988...A powerful low-pressure system over the Great Lakes Region continued to produce snow across parts of the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes Region. Snowfall totals along the shore of Lake Superior reached 24 inches, with three feet of snow reported in the Porcupine Mountain area of Upper Michigan. Marquette, MI established a November record with 17.3 inches of snow in 24 hours. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
6 November 1989...Unseasonably warm weather prevailed in the south central and southeastern U.S. The high temperature of 89 degrees at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport in Texas equaled their record for November. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
6 November 1994...Downtown San Francisco, CA was drenched with 6.19 inches of rain in 24 hours to set an all-time record for the city.
7 November 1986...Temperatures reached a daily record 86 degrees at New Orleans, LA, equaling the highest ever for November. (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
8 November 1914...On this date the longest "official" rain-free time span on record for the U.S. of 767 days ended in Bagdad, CA. Some meteorologists question the accuracy of this record kept by railroad employees at that time. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
8 November 1966...The temperature in downtown San Francisco reached a November record of 86 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
8 November 1991...The first week of November ended in Iowa with the average temperature for the state of 18.3 degrees, a full 24.7 degrees below normal. Easily this was the coldest first week of November ever. (Intellicast)
8 November 1999...The temperature reached 89 degrees at Kennebec, South Dakota, breaking the all time record for the warmest November maximum temperature ever recorded in the state. (The Weather Doctor)
9 November 1913...The "Freshwater Fury", a rapidly deepening cyclone, caused unpredicted gales on the Great Lakes. Cleveland, OH reported 17.4 inches of snow in 24 hours, and a total of 22.2 inches, both all-time records for that location. During the storm, winds at Cleveland averaged 50 mph, with gusts to 79 mph. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
11-12 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)

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