WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

WEEK THREE: 9-13 February 2015

ITEMS OF INTEREST

History of radiosondes on display -- A collector of radiosondes in Water Valley, MS has opened the Radiosonde Museum of North America, which highlights the radiosonde and balloons sent aloft to measure the atmospheric properties at various levels above the Earth's surface. He has provided a website that contain historical photographs of radiosondes, pilot balloons and the instruments used to track these devices over the last nine decades. [Radiosonde Museum of North America]
Free admission into the National Parks and Forests-- This upcoming weekend, Saturday, 14 February through Monday 16 February 2015, has been designated by the National Park Service as a fee-free weekend in honor of Presidents Day. 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]
Monitoring degree-day units -- If you would like to monitor how this winter is affecting the amount of energy that you need for heating your home, please read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth. You will see how heating degree-day units are computed, as well as the corresponding cooling-degree day units. This supplemental also provides links to tabulations of the cumulative heating and cooling degree-day units that are available on a monthly basis for selected cities across the country.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Satellites witness large iceberg break from West Antarctica ice shelf -- Sensors onboard NASA's Landsat 8 and the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellites recently captured the calving of a large iceberg from West Antarctica's King Baudouin Ice Shelf. This large iceberg, which is currently drifting in Breid Bay off of Queen Maud Land, is the largest iceberg to calve from the King Baudouin Ice Shelf since the 1960s. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Rockets used to study northern lights -- NASA scientists and their colleagues recently launched a sounding rocket containing the NASA Auroral Spatial Structures Probe (ASSP) payload from Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, AK in a mission designed to measure both the spatial and temporal variation of the energy flow into the upper atmosphere in and around the aurora borealis or northern lights. The ASSP payload contained seven instruments that will measure the heating of the thermosphere at altitudes above 80 kilometers (50 miles) during auroral events. [NASA Earth Observatory]
The "Pineapple Express" brings much needed rain to parched California -- Beginning last week, a plume of humid air called an atmospheric river developed across the North Pacific Ocean that was directed toward the northern California and southern Oregon coasts. Since the source of this atmospheric river was over the central North Pacific near the Hawaiian Islands, it has been dubbed the "Pineapple Express." With abundant quantities of subtropical water vapor being carried onshore along the West Coast, locally heavy rain fall fallen across sections of northern California and the Pacific Northwest, with some locations receiving between eight and thirteen inches of rain between early Wednesday morning and midday Sunday. A video made from data collected by the sensors onboard NOAA's GOES-West satellite shows the Pineapple Express' stream of clouds reaching the Pacific Northwest. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
In addition to the surveillance of the current atmospheric river across the North Pacific Ocean provided by the GOES-West satellite, NASA and NOAA research aircraft and a NOAA research ship will be used in a massive research effort called CalWater 2015 focused on the study of how the atmospheric rivers contribute to supplying water to California, which is in a historic drought. The multi agency, interdisciplinary CalWater 2015 field campaign will run through late February. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory] Additional information on CalWater 2015 and atmospheric rivers is available. [NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Cold-season air quality over Eastern US examined -- A major air quality project known as WINTER (Wintertime Investigation of Transport, Emissions, and Reactivity) commenced last week and will run through mid March that will focus on the human generated pollutants across the Northeast urban corridor, the Ohio River Valley, and the Southeast Mid-Atlantic region during the winter season. . Wintertime emissions from urban areas, power plants, and farmland will be studied in an effort to better understand those chemical processes that take place as pollutants spread through a cold atmosphere that receives less solar radiation than in summer. Scientists from the NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and five research universities will be participating in WINTER, as they will be using the NSF/NCAR (National Science Foundation/National Center for Atmospheric Research) C-130 aircraft, a flying laboratory equipped with more than 20 instruments to measure gases and particles. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]
Wildfires in boreal forests of North America and Eurasia exhibit different behaviors -- A team of scientists recently reported that their analysis of ten years of satellite data along with ground based observations and computer model simulations reveals that wildfires burning across the boreal forests of North America behave differently from corresponding forests in Eurasia. Boreal forest fires in North America appear to spread faster, burn hotter and longer, send smoke higher into the atmosphere, and kill more trees than fires in Eurasia. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Volcanoes acting on a 100,000-year cycle may play role in Earth's long-term climate -- A researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory claims that the intensity of volcanic activity at deeply submerged mid-ocean ridges varies on an approximately 100,000-year cycle, which is approximately the same length as the 100,000-year cycle in the Earth's orbital eccentricity (or roundness of orbit), one of the three long-term cycles in the Milankovitch cycles used to explain long-term rhythmic variations in Earth's climate. This new finding is based upon profiles of the sea-floor elevation in the East Pacific Rise in the Pacific Ocean. Changes to the Earth's orbit eccentricity could alter the gravitational force on Earth from the Sun, flexing the planet's crust and intensifying volcanic activity when the already thin, undersea crust stretches. Changes in sea level from periodic melting and rebuilding of ice caps and glaciers could also contribute to a varying frequency of eruptions. [American Geophysical Union Newsroom]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

NOAA Administrator makes statement on agency's budget request for Fiscal Year 2016 -- The NOAA Administrator, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, during the last week issued a statement outlining her agency's budget request for Fiscal Year 2016. She notes that the nearly $6 billion requested is to be used to support NOAA's priorities that include 1) community and economic resilience; 2) National Weather Service (NWS) evolution; 3) observational infrastructure; and 4) organizational excellence. She also noted the increased demand for products and services that NOAA provides, ranging from daily weather forecasts to seasonal drought outlooks and to decadal sea level rise projections. [NOAA News]
Program documents traditional knowledge of Alaska native hunters -- Researchers at the University of Alaska have been documenting the marine mammal hunting experiences of members of three communities in southwestern Alaska. These researchers are using funding from Alaska Sea Grant to document these experiences as changing climate are affecting the harvesting of marine mammals in the Bering Sea and Bristol Bay. They are looking for more information about local resources and habitat quality to conserve the marine environment. [NOAA Sea Grant Program News]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Developing a Quality Long-term Instrumental Climate Record

Systematic temperature and precipitation observations have been made at various locations across the nation for nearly two centuries. While only a handful of stations were available in the early 19th century, weather and climate observations currently are made from several hundred automatic weather sites operated by the National Weather Service and the Federal Aviation Administration as well as approximately 8000 stations in the Cooperative Observers Network administered by the National Weather Service. The weather data from these networks are also used to quantitatively assess changes of climate during the instrumental period of the past as well into the future. However, a variety of factors can affect the homogeneity of the record. For example, the locations of many of the stations have moved, from original downtown building roofs to current locations at airports. And the physical surroundings of the stations have changed, many becoming more urbanized.

In the late 1980s, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in conjunction with the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory created the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) of 1218 stations across the 48 coterminous states having long-term records of both daily temperature and precipitation. This network was designed to provide an essential baseline data set for monitoring the nation's climate commencing in the late 19th century. These stations were created from a subset of the Cooperative Observers Network, chosen based upon long-term data quality that included length of record, percent of missing data, spatial distribution and number of station changes. Many of the selected USHCN stations were rural in an attempt to reduce the influence of urbanization. Using statistical analyses, data for these stations have been adjusted to account for movement of stations, or when a different thermometer type was installed. An urban warming correction was applied based upon population of the surrounding area.

More recently, NOAA began the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN), a project designed to collect and analyze climate data of the highest possible quality for the next 50 to 100 years. Each USCRN station would have electronic sensors that would make routine measurements of air temperature, precipitation, IR ground surface temperature, solar radiation and wind speed with a frequency of every five minutes and transmit these data to both NCDC and to National Weather Service offices via orbiting satellites on nearly a real-time basis. In addition to these measurements, additional sensors could be added to the USCRN stations that would measure soil temperature and soil moisture. Conscientious and detailed site selection was made for all stations so that they would not only be spatially representative, but that they would be in locations where the surrounding physical conditions would have a high likelihood of remaining the same over the next 50 to 100 years. Many of the sites were placed on federal or state owned lands, helping minimize the contamination of the climate record by urbanization or other changes in local ground cover.

These long-term, comparative, spatially representative values are vital to detect and verify the subtle changes in climatic conditions before they become overwhelmingly obvious.

Concept of the Week: Questions

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

The majority of United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations were in [(rural), (urban)] settings.
The instruments in the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) sample the atmosphere as frequently as [(5 minutes),(1 day),(1 month)].

Historical Events:

9 February 1899...Norway House, Manitoba reported a temperature of 63 degrees below zero to set the province's record for lowest temperature. (The Weather Doctor)
9 February 1933...The temperature at Moran, WY, located next to Teton National Park, plunged to 63 degrees below zero to establish a state record. The temperature at the Riverside Ranger Station in Montana near West Yellowstone, MT dipped to 66 below zero to establish a record for the state, and a record for the nation, which stood until 1954. (David Ludlum)
9 February 1934...The mercury dipped to 51 degrees below zero at Vanderbilt to establish a record for the state of Michigan. The temperature at Stillwater Reservoir plunged to 52 degrees below zero to establish a record for the state of New York; this record was subsequently tied in February 1979. (David Ludlum) (NCDC)
10 February 1899...The record low temperature for the state of Ohio was set at Milligan when the mercury dipped to 39 degrees below zero. The record low temperature for Virginia was also set at Monterey with 29 degrees below zero; this record has been broken in January 1985. (Intellicast) (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
10 February 1933...The temperature at Seneca, OR fell to 54 degrees below zero, tying Oregon's statewide low temperature record set the previous day at Ukiah. (NCDC)
10 February 2011...The Oklahoma Mesonet weather station at Nowata recorded a temperature of 31 degrees below zero, which is the lowest reading in the Sooner State, breaking the previous statewide record low of 27 degrees below zero set at several stations in earlier years. By midafternoon, the temperature at Nowata increased by 53 Fahrenheit degrees to 22 degrees above zero. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar) (NCDC)
11 February 1895...Braemar (Grampian), Scotland reported a temperature of 17 degrees below zero, the lowest temperature ever measured in the United Kingdom. (The Weather Doctor)
11 February 1899...Perhaps the greatest of all arctic outbreaks commenced on this date. The record low temperature for Washington, DC was set when the temperature fell to 15 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
11 February 1935...Temperature of 11 degrees below zero at Ifrane, Morocco was the lowest temperature ever in Africa. (The Weather Doctor)
11 February 1970...Mount Washington, NH, the highest point in New England, recorded 10.38 inches during a 24-hour span (10^th-11^th) to set a statewide 24 hour maximum precipitation record. (NCDC)
11 February 1999...Tahtsa Lake, located in the Whitesail Range of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia reported 57 inches of snow, which set a new 24-hour snowfall record for Canada, eclipsing the old record of 46.5 inches of snow that fell at Lakelse, BC on 17 January 1974. This former record replaced a 44.0 inch summertime snowfall on 29 June 1963 at Livingston Ranger Station, AB. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (The Weather Doctor)
12 February 1899...Texas and the eastern Great Plains experienced their coldest morning of modern record. The temperature at Camp Clarke, NE plunged to 47 degrees below zero to establish a record for the Cornhusker State; this record has been tied in December 1989. (David Ludlum)
13 February 1784...Ice floes blocked the Mississippi River at New Orleans, then passed into the Gulf of Mexico. The only other time this occurred was during the "Great Arctic Outbreak" of 1899. (David Ludlum)
13 February 1899...It was the coldest morning of record along the Gulf Coast. The mercury dipped to 2 degrees below zero at Tallahassee, the lowest reading of record for the state of Florida. The record low temperature for the state of Louisiana was set at Minden, when the thermometer fell to 16 degrees below zero. A trace of snow fell at Fort Myers, FL. This was the farthest south snow has ever been observed in the U.S. until 1977 when snow fell in Miami. The lowest temperature ever recorded at Dayton, OH occurred when it dropped to 28 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
13 February 1905...Morning lows of 29 degrees below zero at Pond, AR, 40 degrees below at Lebanon, KS, and 40 below at Warsaw, MO established all-time records for those three states. (The Weather Channel)
15 February 1936...The temperature at Parshall, ND plunged to 60 degrees below zero to establish a state record low temperature. On the 6^th of July that same year, the temperature at Steele, ND hit 121 degrees, also a state record high temperature. (David Ludlum)

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