2-6 May 2011

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2011 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 29 August 2011. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• New NASA flight initiatives for students and teachers announced -- NASA recently announced two flight initiatives have been developed at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia that are designed to provide students and educators with hands-on flight experiences using NASA sounding rockets and scientific balloons. The program, which includes the Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students (WRATS) and the Wallops Balloon Experience for Educators (WBEE), will allow the students and teachers to interact with NASA engineers and scientists. [NASA]

• May is National Wetlands Month -- The US Environmental Protection Agency, along with other federal agencies and environmental groups, has designated May as American Wetlands Month in an effort to increase public awareness of the importance of protecting and preserving the nation's wetlands. This year's observance is the 21st annual National Wetlands Month. [EPA-Wetlands] 

• "Be Air Aware" -- National Weather Service and the US Environmental Protection Agency have announced that this upcoming week (2-6 May 2011) is Air Quality Awareness Week and they are urging Americans to "Be Air Aware." [NOAA Air Quality] Individual states and localities will have specific Air Quality Awareness Week activities.
• Kentucky Derby climatology -- With the 137th running of the Kentucky Derby set for next Saturday (7 May 2011), the National Weather Service's Louisville (KY) Forecast Office has posted a climatology for Derby Day, including the historical weather extremes. [Louisville NWSFO]

• Precipitation measurement campaign commences -- The three-month Mid-latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) field campaign has begun involving rainfall observations using aircraft, spacecraft, remote sensing and ground sensors. NASA is participating, by supplying its high-altitude Lockheed ER-2 Earth resources aircraft and its CloudSat, CALIPSO, Aqua and TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) satellites to collect rainfall data from convective type clouds that will supplement conventional based surface rain gauge data. This campaign is designed to increase understanding of cloud systems producing copious quantities of rain and will include studies over central Oklahoma, California's Mojave Desert and Costa Rica. [NASA Precipitation Measurement Mission]
• Instrument being built to study magnetic reconnection events -- Scientists and engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center are building an instrument called the Fast Plasma Instrument (FPI) that will monitor how electromagnetic radiation from the sun interacts with Earth's magnetosphere during magnetic reconnection events that initiate additional energy bursts of energy. The FPI will be flown on the fleet of four identical spacecraft to be launched in 2014 by NASA as part of the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, designed to focus on the dynamic magnetic system stretching from the sun to past the Earth's orbit. [NASA GSFC]
• Animation shows interannual variability of Pacific Ocean sea surface heights -- A nearly 19-year sequence of images of the sea surface heights in the Pacific Ocean basin as obtained from several NASA spacecraft reveal a year-to-year variation superimposed upon the gradual increase in global sea level height. These "interannual" variations reflect changes that range from several years to a decade associated with climate events such as the El Niño, La Niña and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. [NASA Hurricane Mission]
• Animated maps of weather/climate data produced from satellite data -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have assembled animations of monthly maps showing the global and seasonal distribution of a variety of weather and climate elements including:
• Net radiation at the top of the Earth's atmosphere for the months running from July 2006 through March 2011. The maps of net radiation (or the difference between incoming solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation) were collected from measurements made by the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) sensors on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Snow cover that commences in February 2000 and runs through March 2011. This animation is generated from a sequence of maps derived from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Atmospheric aerosols from January 2005 through March 2011. This animation is generated from a sequence of maps derived from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Terrestrial vegetation health from February 2000 through February 2011. The animation is generated from maps of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• 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]

• Global climate could be affected by the Agulhas Current system and its "leakage" -- A scientific team from the US, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain have discovered that the Agulhas Current, which runs along the east coast of Africa, has "leakage" from the Indian Ocean into the Atlantic Ocean and that increased Agulhas leakage could represent a significant player in global climate variability. Warm and salty water from the tropical Indian Ocean could leak into the less saline Atlantic Ocean and strengthen the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. [University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science]
• Deep ocean eddies found as powerful ocean transport modes -- Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and their colleagues have discovered that massive, swirling ocean eddies can extend from the surface down to the ocean bottom at mid-ocean ridges, transporting tiny marine life, chemicals, and heat from hydrothermal vents over large distances. These eddies may have a horizontal dimension of approximately 500 kilometers at the surface and extend vertically over 2500 meters. The researchers found that atmospheric events such as winds can generate these eddies at the surface. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]

• Predictability research initiatives advanced -- Meteorology faculty at the University of Oklahoma have been involved with multiple projects that are advancing the school's predictability research initiatives designed to eventually provide more accurate forecasts of weather-related events. Several of the projects involve predicting rain-triggered landslides and tornado data assimilation schemes. [University of Oklahoma]

• New intergovernmental agency climate impact studies funded -- NASA, together with the US Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Smithsonian Institution recently announced funding during the next four years for 15 new research projects to study the response of different species and ecosystems to climate changes and develop tools to better manage wildlife and natural resources. The research projects will be conducted by academia, government and the private sector organizations. [NASA Headquarters]
• 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.

• 2 May 1899...A storm buried Havre, MT under 24.8 inches of snow, an all-time record for that location. The water equivalent of 2.48 inches was a record 24-hour total for the month of May. (The Weather Channel)
• 6 May 1933...Charleston, SC was deluged with 10.57 inches of rain, an all-time 24-hour record for that location. (The Weather Channel)
• 6 May 1978...A record late season snowstorm struck Colorado. Denver checked in with 14 inches for its greatest May snowstorm on record. (Intellicast)
• 7 May 1964...The temperature at White Mountain 2, located in California, dipped to 15 degrees below zero to set a record for May for the continental U.S. (The Weather Channel)

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2011, The American Meteorological Society.