22-26 March 2010

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• (Thursday) Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Climate Day 2010 -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has announced a two-day JPL Climate Day observance that will be held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, CA on Friday 26 March 2010 for educators and students, and on Saturday 27 March 2010 for the general public. These events will be between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM PDT. The theme of Climate Day 2010 is "Bringing Scientists, Students, and Communities together to Promote Global Climate Literacy." Preregistration is needed for the Friday session. [JPL]
• International observances -- Several days during this upcoming week have been designated as special days that are intended to focus public attention on the environment and earth science:
• "World Water Day" --
Monday, 22 March 2010, has been designated by the United Nations as the annual World Water Day, with this year's theme identified as "Clean Water for a Healthy World," which has a goal of raising the profile of water quality at the political level, to a level that would be alongside considerations of water quantity. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will lead the activities of the World Water Day 2009 with the support of United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Observance of World Water Day around the world arose from the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. [UN-Water]
• "World Meteorology Day" --
Tuesday, 23 March 2010 is World Meteorology Day. This day is designated to celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 23 March 1950. The WMO is an agency within the United Nations. The theme of this year's World Meteorological Day for 2010 is "http://www.wmo.int/wmd/index_en.html 60 years of service for your safety and well-being," marking the 60 years of scientific and socio-economic benefits to the international community provided by WMO.
• New environmental satellite is renamed GOES-15 --
As is tradition, once one of the newly launched Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellites has been tested by NASA and NOAA engineers, a change in names takes place. At the end of last week, the new GOES-P satellite that was launched nearly two weeks ago was renamed GOES-15. This new satellite, which is the last of the current GOES-N-P series of environmental weather satellites, will be stored in geosynchronous orbit and will be used once one of the earlier satellites malfunctions. While the satellite was launched by NASA, NOAA will assume operational control of it. [NASA GSFC]
• A view of Mauna Loa Observatory from space --
An image made from data collected by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite shows a view of the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Loa, the site of the Mauna Loa Observatory where the observations have been taken for the last 52 years to form the famous time series of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

• Review of global weather and climate for February 2010 and boreal winter -- Using preliminary data collected from the global network of surface weather stations, scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center have determined that the combined global land and ocean surface temperature for February 2010 was the sixth highest for any February since global climate records began in 1880. They also noted that the combined land-ocean temperature for the three months of December 2009, January and February 2010 was also the fifth highest for this three-month Northern Hemisphere winter-Southern Hemisphere summer season. Furthermore, the average global ocean surface temperatures for both February and the three-month season were the second highest on record. Correspondingly, the global land surface temperature for February 2010 was 14th highest, while that of the December 2009-February 2010 was the 13th highest.
  The areal coverage of Arctic sea ice was below the 1979-2000 average and represented the fourth lowest February extent since satellite surveillance began in 1979. Conversely, the extent of Antarctic sea ice was above average, marking the eighth largest February extent on record.
  The Northern Hemisphere snow cover was the third largest on record during February, while the snow cover across North America for the three-month winter season was the largest on record that started in the late 1960s. [NOAA News]
• State and city weather extremes for February 2010 --
The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has posted a listing of some of the notable extremes in temperature, precipitation and other weather elements across the nation for the recently completed month of February in "Selected U.S. City and State Extremes for February 2010." Note that this site may be updated during the following several weeks as more data are received and analyzed.
• February drought reports --
The National Climate Data Center have posted its February 2010 drought reports online. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index as a gauge, approximately three percent of the coterminous United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of February, while ten percent of the area had moderate to extreme drought. On the other hand, 24 percent of the area in the Lower 48 had severely to extremely wet conditions.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

• Is the current El Niño making a "last hurrah"? -- An oceanographer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has been monitoring the current El Niño event has noted that sea-level height data obtained from the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite appears to indicate an eastward-moving wave of warm water, known as a Kelvin wave, may signal a "last hurrah" for this El Niño. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Increased UV exposure during the 1980s found to stabilize over last decade --
A scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who analyzed 30-years of satellite data collected from NASA, NOAA and commercial satellites has concluded that while increases in UV radiation have occurred in mid- and polar latitudes since 1979 due to decreases in stratospheric ozone, these increases have been stabilizing since 1990 because of the 1987 international agreement to limit emissions of ozone-depleting gases. Only minor increases have been found in tropical regions. He also noted that increased cloudiness over the Southern Hemisphere during those 30 years. [NASA GSFC] [NASA Earth Science News Team]
• Mission to study Arctic glaciers begins --
During this upcoming week, NASA's Operation IceBridge mission, the largest airborne survey ever flown over Earth's polar ice, will commence its second year of study when NASA aircraft are scheduled to arrive in Greenland. This mission will help fill the gap in polar observations that have occurred since the loss of NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) in February 2010 and the planned 2015 launch of ICESat-2. [NASA Earth Science News Team]
• New Arctic Future Website focuses on impacts of sea ice loss --
NOAA recently unveiled a website entitled "Future of Arctic Sea Ice and Global Impacts" that is designed to provide the public, businesses and government officials with easy-to-understand cause-and-effect-graphics and links to the scientific literature demonstrating how changes in the Arctic sea ice could impact the weather and climate of polar and midlatitudes. [NOAA News]
• 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

• An extra-atmospheric view of recent solar activity -- An image obtained from the instrument onboard NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Ahead spacecraft in mid February shows a small solar storm developing in two active areas of the Sun's surface. A solar flare and a small coronal mass ejection. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Quiet sun would not stem global warming --
A new study published by scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the National Center for Atmospheric Research indicates that even if the sun continued to experience low activity over a long period, the low activity would be not be capable of stemming the rise of global temperatures caused by increased levels of greenhouse gases. [Discovery News]
• Winds across the Southern Ocean seen to influence rate of climate change --
Using seven years of data collected from the Argo fleet of profiling floats, Australian and US scientists have discovered that changes in the intensity of the prevailing winds blowing over the Southern Ocean have driven variations in the depth of the surface layer of sea water. This surface-mixed layer is responsible for regulating air-sea exchanges of heat and carbon dioxide, thereby influencing the rate of climate change. [CSIRO]
• Prescribed burns could reduce nation's carbon footprint --
Scientists with National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Northern Arizona University report that prescribed burning to manage Western forests may help the United States reduce its carbon footprint by reducing the amount of carbon that would be released by major wildfires in those forests not managed with prescribed burns. These scientists suggest that prescribed burns could be an important piece of the nation's climate change strategy. [UCAR/NCAR News]
• Forest protected areas could provide a strategy for slowing climate change --
Scientists from more than a dozen organizations, universities and research institutions have produced a study entitled "Indigenous Lands, Protected Areas, and Slowing Climate Change" that indicates forest protection offers one of the most effective, practical, and immediate strategies to combat climate change. This study also makes specific recommendations for incorporating protected areas into overall strategies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

• Major spring flooding foreseen across eastern sections of nation -- NOAA’s National Weather Service recently warned that more than a third of the coterminous United States is experiencing an above average flood risk, with the largest threats occurring across sections of the Upper Midwest, where major flooding has begun due to snowmelt from an extensive snow cover. In addition, the South and East are also more susceptible to flooding due to above average winter precipitation associated with the current El Niño event. [NOAA News]
• Miniature river delta helps catastrophic flooding predictions --
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania created a miniature river delta that they used to replicate flooding conditions on river deltas and alluvial fans, which ultimately led to the development of a mathematical model capable of predicting catastrophic flooding. [University of Pennsylvania]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

• Asian neighbors need to cooperate for global environment benefit -- A noted fisheries and wildlife professor at Michigan State University exhorts two large Asian neighbors, China and India to cooperate in scientific endeavors in mitigating the negative environmental impacts associated with their developing economies and the consumption of raw materials. He hopes that this cooperation would help mitigate climate change and curtail the loss of biodiversity. [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: Start of the Growing Season

As we move through spring, the increases in daylength and air temperature across many areas of the nation make backyard gardeners as well as farmers contemplate the start of the growing season. For many crops, the soil has to be tilled and prepared for planting before the growing season really commences. Soil temperatures and moisture levels often influence when fieldwork can start.

The term growing season depends upon the plant species, as well as the climate of the locale, meaning that several ways can be used to define the growing season. In most mid latitude climates, the growing season is often used synonymously with the frost-free season, loosely defined as the length of time between the last killing frost in spring and the first killing frost in the autumn. The National Climatic Data Center has produced climatological tables that identify those median dates (a 50 percent occurrence) during spring and fall when the temperature at a station falls to 36, 32, 28, 24 or 20 degrees Fahrenheit for the last time in spring or the first time in autumn. While the exact time span that a plant survives would vary by plant type, the growing season for climatological purposes is often related to the interval when the daily minimum temperature remains above 32 degrees.

Across the continental U.S. the typical lengths of the frost free regions range from about 120 days along the Canadian border to about 220 days in Oklahoma and north Texas and over 320 days in southern sections of Florida and California. Mountainous areas provide a complex pattern, with some higher elevations having lengths that are less than 100 days. By accessing the NOWData (NOAA Online Weather Data) feature on the Climate page of your local National Weather Service, you can find the "first/last dates" for various climate reporting stations around your area.

Many crops, especially vegetables and fruits, are sensitive to relatively low air temperatures. In spring, when many crops are emerging and in various stages of development they are more vulnerable to air temperatures near 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But by fall, many of these plants have become hardy. Generally speaking, a spring killing frost would occur when the plant has become well emerged and the temperature around the plant would fall to a point that would kill most tender vegetation. Sometimes, other terminology is used.

Concept of the Week: Questions

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

1. Many emerging crops would succumb if the spring air temperatures fell to [(36),(33),(28)] degrees.
2. The frost-free season in states bordering Canada would probably be about [(60),(90),(120)] days.

Historical Events:

• 22 March 1888… The morning' low temperature at Chicago, IL dipped to one degree below zero, the latest sub zero Fahrenheit reading in the Windy City's history. (The Weather Doctor)
• 23 March 1912...Residents of Kansas City, MO began to dig out from a storm that produced 25 inches of snow in 24 hours . The snowfall total was nearly twice that of any other storm of modern record in Kansas City before or since that time. A record 40 inches of snow fell during the month of March that year, and the total for the winter season of 67 inches was also a record. By late February of that year, Kansas City had received just six inches of snow. Olathe, KS received 37 inches of snow in the snowstorm, establishing a single storm record for the state of Kansas. (23rd-24th) (Intellicast) (The Kansas City Weather Almanac) (The Weather Channel)
• 24 March 1993...What was to be called "the winter of the return of the big snows" continued to set records. Boston, MA had 8.6 inches of snow on this day to push its monthly total to 38.9 inches that set a new March monthly snowfall record. The old record was 33.0 inches set in 1916. Boston's seasonal snowfall total now stood at 81.7 inches, the third snowiest winter season on record. (Intellicast)
• 25 March 1914...Society Hill, SC was buried under 18 inches of snow, establishing a state record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
• 25 March 1975...The town of Sandberg reported a wind gust to 101 mph, a record for the state of California. (The Weather Channel)
• 26 March 1913...The Ohio River Basin flood reached a peak. Ten-inch rains over a wide area of the Ohio River Basin inundated cities in Ohio, drowning 467 persons, and causing 147 million dollars damage. The Miami River at Dayton reached a level eight feet higher than ever before. The flood, caused by warm weather and heavy rains, was the second mostly deadly of record for the nation. (David Ludlum)
• 26 March 1930...A two-day snowfall of 19.2 inches at Chicago, IL was the greatest modern snowfall on the record books at Chicago. (Intellicast)
• 26 March 1954...The temperature at Allakaket, AK plunged to 69 degrees below zero, setting a record for the lowest temperature ever for March. (The Weather Channel)
• 26-28 March 2004…The first ever confirmed hurricane in the South Atlantic Ocean, named Catarina, struck the coast of the Brazilian states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul with heavy rains and winds, before dissipating over land late on the 28th. (The Weather Doctor)
• 27 March 1931...A blizzard that struck western Kansas and adjoining states was called the "worst since January 1888". The low temperature of 3 degrees below zero, which was reached during the blizzard, stands as the lowest temperature recorded so late in the season. (Intellicast)
• 27-28 March 1964...The most powerful earthquake in US history, the Good Friday Earthquake, rocked south central Alaska, killing 125 people and causing $311 million in property damage, especially to the city of Anchorage. The earthquake in Prince William Sound, which had a magnitude of 9.2 on the Richter scale, caused some landmasses to be thrust upward locally as much as 80 feet, while elsewhere land sank as much as 8 feet. This earthquake and submarine landslides also created a tsunami that produced extensive coastal damage. A landslide at Valdez Inlet in Alaska generated a tsunami that reached a height of 220 feet in the inlet. A major surge wave that was approximately 100 ft above low tide caused major damage to Whittier (where 13 died) and other coastal communities in Alaska. The first wave took more than 5 hours to reach the Hawaiian Islands where a 10-foot wave was detected, while a wave that was 14.8 feet above high tide level traveled along portions of the West Coast, reaching northern California 4 hours after the earthquake. Nearly 10,000 people jammed beaches at San Francisco to view the possible tsunami, but no high-amplitude waves hit those beaches. Tsunami damage reached Crescent City in northern California. Tens of thousands of aftershocks indicated that the region of faulting extended about 600 miles. The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center was established in the wake of this disaster, with a mission to warn Alaskan communities of the threat from tsunamis. [See the 1964 Prince William Sound Tsunami page from the University of Washington.] (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (US Coast Guard Historians Office)
• 27 March 1984...A strong storm system traversing northern Texas pulled very hot air northeastward into southern Texas. The temperature at Brownsville, TX soared to 106 degrees, which broke not only the monthly record high temperature but the all-time record as well. Cotulla, TX reached 108 degrees, equaling the March record for the U.S. (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
• 28 March 1902...McMinnville, TN (elevation 900 feet) received 11.00 inches of precipitation, setting a 24-hour precipitation record for the Volunteer State. (National Climate Data Center).
• 28 March 1955…Florida's latest measurable snowfall occurred at Marianna when one inch of snow fell. Ground is whitened further south in Panama City. (The Weather Doctor)

Return to DataStreme ECS website

Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.