29 March-2 April 2010

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• A phenological event in the Cherry Blossom Watch --
Many tourists descend upon Washington, DC during the spring to view the sights, including the blossoming cherry trees that line the Tidal Basin along the Potomac River. The National Park service operates a website that reports the status of the cherry blossoms in anticipation of the 95th annual Cherry Blossom Festival that is scheduled for next two weeks (Saturday, 27 March to Sunday, 11 April 2010). This site also has a listing of the phenological observations for past bloom dates. According to a recent update, experts expect that the trees should be in peak bloom during the next few days (1-4 April). [USA Today]
• Satellite movie captures record-setting blizzards in our nation's capital --
The GOES project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center recently produced a 2-minute movie of the first 16 days of February from data collected from GOES-12 (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) showing the two "nor'easter" storms that traveled across the Middle Atlantic States and brought record snow to the Washington DC/Baltimore, MD metropolitan areas. [NASA GSFC]
• Flooding of the Red River seen from space --
Real and false color images obtained from the Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite one week ago show the widespread near-record flooding that occurred in the Red River Valley separating the Dakotas from Minnesota. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Sandstorms continue to plague China --
A MODIS image obtained from NASA's Terra satellite shows the haze associated with the massive sandstorms that have blown across China from the arid Inner Mongolia to the Bohai Sea of China's eastern coast. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Five questions on new climate "fingerprinting" mission --
An interview conducted at NASA's Langley Research Center posed five questions to Dave Young, the Project Scientist for NASA’s CLimate Absolute Radiance and REfractivity Observatory (CLARREO), concerning how this mission will be able to measure small changes in the flow of energy into and out of the planetary system and how these can be used to "fingerprint" the climate. [NASA LARC]
• Monitoring El Niño and La Niña --
Scientists have suggested that some of the unusual weather patterns that have affected not only the United States, but other countries during the last several years, may have been linked to events called El Niño and La Niña. For more details on how to monitor these phenomena using a variety of current weather data, please read this week's Supplemental Information…In Greater Depth.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

• Atlantic "conveyor belt" shows no sign of slowing --
An oceanographer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory claims that a new monitoring technique that he developed using measurements from ocean-observing satellites and profiling floats indicates that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, has shown little sign of slowing over the last 15 years. [NASA JPL]
• Northwest Greenland ice sheet losing mass --
Researchers at the Denmark Technical Institute's National Space Institute, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Ohio State University, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California-Irvine have concluded that the ice-loss along Greenland's northwest coast started in late 2005 and has been accelerating since then, based upon their comparison of data collected by NASA's Gravity and Recovery Climate Experiment satellite system (GRACE) with continuous GPS measurements made from long-term sites on bedrock on the edges of the ice sheet. [NASA JPL]
• 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

• Tectonic plate movements model developed -- After 20 years in building, geophysicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rice University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have unveiled a new model of the Earth called MORVEL (for "mid-ocean ridge velocities) that provide a more precise three-dimensional model of the movement of 25 interlocking tectonic plates around the Earth's surface. [University of Wisconsin-Madison News] [NASA JPL]
• Icelandic volcano erupts --
An image made last week from data collected by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) onboard NASA’s Earth Orbiting-1 satellite shows some of the steam plumes and the magma flow from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, which erupted the previous week after 190 years of inactivity. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Asian pollution encircles the globe in the stratosphere --
Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Canada's Universities of Waterloo and Toronto in Canada, England's University of York and Scotland's University of Edinburgh have used satellite observations and computer models to track the pollutants originating from the industries in developing Asian countries that are transported by the summer monsoon circulation regime upward into the stratosphere, where the pollutants are then carried around the globe. [UCAR/NCAR]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

• Soil respiration increases with higher global temperatures -- Ecologists at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland have determined from 20 years of field studies that as air temperatures have increased, the plants and microbes in the soil have increased "soil respiration" or the amount of carbon dioxide they give off has also increased by approximately 0.1 per cent per year. These researchers claim that their research into soil respiration will help in assessing the role of global carbon cycle affects climate. [EurekAlert!]
• Radar data from satellites used to construct new biomass maps of boreal forests --
Researchers at Germany's Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry have used data collected from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar on the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite to construct maps of the large-scale boreal forest biomass inventory, which can then be used to assess the role that this biomass has with the carbon cycle and for future global climate. [ESA]
• Plant diversity threatened by increases in global temperature --
Scientists from the German universities of Bonn and Göttingen and from Yale University in the US using a 18 different climate change scenarios for the 21st century have found that changes in climate associated with increased global temperatures and more arid conditions could cause a worldwide deterioration in the plant diversity. However, habitats could become available for additional species in those areas where cool and moist conditions would persist. [EurekAlert!]
• Link found between climate change and an Atlantic fishery --
Scientists at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center who developed a new climate-population model to study rising ocean temperatures and fishing rates on East Coast fish population claim that they have found a link between changes in the Atlantic croaker fish stock and winter water temperatures associated with climate change. [NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center]

CLIMATE MODELING

• Interagency program to generate high resolution models for predicting climate change -- Last week, the National Science Foundation, along with the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture announced the launch of a joint research program called "Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction Using Earth System Models" that would produce high-resolution models designed to predict climate change and its resulting impacts. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

• Eleven questions are identified for next decade of geographical sciences research -- A new report entitled "Understanding The Changing Planet: Strategic Directions For The Geographical Sciences" produced by the National Research Council has identified eleven questions that should help shape the direction of geographical sciences research during the next decade. These questions are aimed to provide a more complete understanding of how and where landscapes are changing in order o help society manage and adapt to changes in the Earth's surface. [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: Seawater Salinity and Carbon Dioxide

The contemporary concern regarding global climate change has caused scientists to study the various factors that govern the ocean's ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. Concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, are on the rise primarily because of increased burning of fossil fuels. Higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be contributing to increased global temperatures, a condition often identified as global warming. The ocean's role in regulating the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide depends on the temperature, salinity, and biological components of surface waters.

Studies show that the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide is primarily temperature dependent. As noted in Chapter 8 of your textbook, gases are more soluble in cold seawater than warm seawater. Hence, changes in sea surface temperature affect the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide. We also found in Chapter 1, photosynthetic organisms assimilate carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Through cellular respiration, all organisms release carbon dioxide. Therefore, biological activity affects the ocean's ability to absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

What about the effects of changes in salinity on the ocean's uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide? Research from the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii provides some insight on this question. For nearly 20 years, scientists have been collecting physical, chemical and biological data through a large column of ocean water at Station ALOHA, a sampling site about 100 km (62 mi) north of Oahu that appears representative of oceanic conditions in the central North Pacific. In 2003, David M. Karl, a biogeochemist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, reported a decline in the rate at which surface ocean waters were absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In 2001, the rate of carbon dioxide uptake was only about 15% of the rate in 1989. Why the change in carbon dioxide uptake? In this region of the Pacific north of Hawaii, sea surface temperatures showed no significant change during the period of observation but precipitation decreased and evaporation increased. Less precipitation associated with drought coupled with higher rates of evaporation caused the surface water salinity at ALOHA to increase by about 1%. Increasing salinity inhibits water's ability to absorb gases including carbon dioxide. Karl and his colleagues attribute 40% of the decline in the ocean's carbon dioxide uptake to the saltier waters. The balance of the decline may be due to changes in biological productivity or ocean mixing.

Projected changes in global climate indicate significant changes in precipitation around the globe including reduced precipitation over various large areas of the oceans, resulting in potential "drought" conditions. Since changes in oceanic salinity result from changes in precipitation, the contribution that salinity plays on future assimilation of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the ocean also becomes an important consideration.

Concept of the Week: Questions

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

1. With rising sea surface temperatures, the rate of evaporation of seawater [(increases), (decreases)].
2. With increasing salinity and constant temperature, the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide that is taken up by ocean water [(increases), (decreases)].

Historical Events:

• 29 March 1879...The temperature at Los Angeles, CA climbed to 99 degrees, which was 3 degrees higher than any other March day had ever reached in the city. (Intellicast)
• 29 March 1886...Atlanta, GA was drenched with a record 7.36 inches of rain in 24 hours. (The Weather Channel)
• 29 March 1920...Clear Spring, MD received 31 inches of snow in 24 hours to establish a state record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
• 29 March 1942...The "Palm Sunday snowstorm" buried Baltimore, MD under 22 inches of snow in 24 hours. This was the heaviest 24-hour snowfall ever for the city for the month of March as well as the heaviest snow for so late in the season. (Intellicast)
• 29 March 1945...Providence, RI hit 90 degrees to establish a March record for the New England area. (The Weather Channel)
• 30 March 1977...Hartford, CT hit 87 degrees to establish a record for the month of March. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 March 1890...Saint Louis, MO received 20.4 inches of snow in 24 hours, which was the worst snowstorm of record for St. Louis. (David Ludlum)
• 31 March 1954...The temperature at Rio Grande City, TX hit 108 degrees, which for thirty years was the U.S. record high for the month of March. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 March 1992...Seattle, WA closed out its first snowless winter ever (November through March). Las Vegas, NV recorded 4.80 inches of rain during the past month, which set 2 records -- the wettest March ever (old record 1.83 inches set in 1973) and the wettest month ever (old record 3.39 inches in September 1939). The normal yearly rainfall for the city is only 4.19 inches! (Intellicast)
• 2 April 1970...The last snowstorm of the 1969-70 winter season came to an end at Chicago, IL as 10 .7 inches of snow fell -- a final contribution to the season's amount of 77 inches, which set a new all-time snow season record for the city. (Intellicast)
• 2 April 1975...A severe storm over the northeastern US began on this day and blasted the area for the next 3 days. Wind gusts reached 87 mph at West Harpswell, ME and Boston, MA recorded its lowest April pressure on record (28.68 inches). Tides along the coast ran 2 to 4 feet above normal and anywhere from 1 to 4 feet of snow fell from western New York to northern Maine with the higher elevations receiving the most. (Intellicast)
• 3 April 1955…Record snow fell across north-central Wyoming and south-central Montana as Sheridan WY established a 24-hour snowfall record with 26.7 inches. (The Weather Doctor)
• 3 April 1996...Marquette, MI recorded 12.6 inches of snow on this day to raise its seasonal snowfall to 250.8 inches -- the city's snowiest winter ever. The old record was 243.8 inches set back in 1981-82. The snowfall for the month now stood at 43.4 inches -- the snowiest April on record for the city as well. (Intellicast)
• 4 April 1933...Pigeon River Bridge, MN reported 28 inches of snow, which established the state 24-hour snowfall record. (4th-5th) (The Weather Channel)
• 4 April 1955...A severe 3-day spring snowstorm ended over north central Wyoming and south central Montana. Sheridan, WY had near blizzard conditions for 43 hours and recorded 22.7 inches of snow in 24 hours on the 3^rd to set a new 24-hour snowfall record. Billings, MT had a storm total of 42.3 inches, a new single storm snowfall record. (Intellicast)
• 4 April 1973...Sandia Crest, NM reported a snow depth of 95 inches, a record for the state of New Mexico. (The Weather Channel)

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