WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

13-17 May 2013

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2013 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 2 September 2013. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Zenithal Sun -- The end of this upcoming week marks one of the two times during the year when the noontime sun is directly overhead to residents on the Big Island on about 14 May at South Cape (Ka Lae at 18.9 deg North latitude and 155.68 degrees West longitude) and on the 18th and 19 May at Hilo; those on Oahu (Honolulu metropolitan area) will experience the noon sun at the zenith in approximately one more week (25-27 May). The sun will again be over the Big Island during the last week of July. [US Naval Observatory, Data Services]
Hurricane season begins in the eastern North Pacific -- The 2013 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific Ocean basin begins on Wednesday, 15 May 2013. The hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico will begin in two weeks on 1 June. The official hurricane seasons in both basins end on 30 November 2013. NOAA has declared the week of 26 May-1 June 2013 to be Hurricane Awareness Week across the nation.
New Interior Department climate change advisory committee appointed -- Early last week the US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced the members of the newly created Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science that will provide guidance about the Interior Department's climate change adaptation science initiatives and advise the Interior Secretary about the activities of the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the Department of the Interior Climate Science Centers. [US Department of Interior Press Release]
Time-lapse satellite image sequences chronicle global change for nearly three decades -- Google, Inc., the American corporation specializing in Internet services, recently released a compilation of time-lapse sequences of images made of Earth from space that cover more than a quarter of a century. The images, which display changes to Earth's surface over time, were generated from data collected from the Landsat Program managed by the US Geological Survey, the images display an historical perspective on changes to Earth's surface over time. [NASA Headquarters] or [USGS Newsroom] For some of the image sequences, attention is directed to the Google Official Blog.

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Data are made available for climate change and human health research -- Last week, the Obama Administration announced that data potentially useful to research related to climate change and human health would be made available publicly through a new online tool called "Metadata Access Tool for Climate and Health (or MATCH), a project administered by the interagency US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). MATCH is a searchable clearinghouse of publicly available Federal metadata and links for data sets and tools, extracted from more than 9000 health, environment, and climate-science datasets held by six Federal agencies, including NOAA and NASA. [The White House]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Ground measurement campaign launched to improve flood forecasting --At the start of May, NASA and the Iowa Flood Center at the University of Iowa have begun collecting surface precipitation observations across northeastern Iowa as part of the a six-week Iowa Flood Studies experiment designed to evaluate the accuracy of NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission satellite rainfall data that would be used for flood forecasting. The GPM international satellite mission will be launched in early 2014. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
Mauna Loa Observatory measures new carbon dioxide level milestone -- Late last week NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory measured a daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide that surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm). This reading was the first time that the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reached 400 ppm since these measurements began in 1958 by the late Charles Keeling. Scientists noted that the rate of increase in carbon dioxide has accelerated from about 0.7 ppm per year in the late 1950s to 2.1 ppm per year during the last decade. [NOAA Research]
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

Dust found in high-level ice clouds -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NOAA have found that the majority of the ice crystals that comprise high level cirrus-type clouds have nucleated around mineral dust or metallic aerosols. The researchers collected samples of these particles from cirrus clouds over a nine-year span and conducted chemical analysis using high-resolution electron microscopy. Other possible nucleating agents such as black carbon and fungal spores were not detected. Although most of the mineral dust appears to be from natural sources, the metallic aerosols are the result of human activity. These thin cirrus-type clouds influence the global climate in opposing ways: cooling through reflection of incoming solar radiation and warming through trapping outgoing terrestrial or infrared radiation. [MIT News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

An ice-free Arctic may be a future reality -- An international team of scientists lead by a researcher from the University of Massachusetts Amherst warn that the current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are similar to levels between 3.6 and 2.2 million years ago when the Arctic was very warm and without ice sheets. The team based its assessment following the analysis of a sediment core collected from under ice-covered Lake El'gygytgyn, the oldest deep lake in the northeast Russian Arctic. This sediment core is the longest ever collected on land in the Arctic, extending the reconstructed climate record backward from 140,000 years ago to nearly 3.6 million years ago at the time of the lake's formation. [University of Massachusetts Amherst News]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Climate data used to track cicadas --The anticipated return of the 17-year cicadas along the Eastern Seaboard this spring has sparked an interest by the public. A commonly held belief is that the cicadas will reemerge from underground when the soil temperature at an 8-inch depth would exceed approximately 64 degrees Fahrenheit. In an attempt to forecast the emergence of the cicadas, the National Public Radio's Radiolab has developed a citizen-science project that invites the public to plant a homemade temperature sensor in the ground and report their findings. In addition, the Radiolab's Cicada Tracker project is also using soil temperatures obtained from the National Climatic Data Center's U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). [NOAA NCDC News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

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]

COMPARATIVE PLANETOLOGY

Studying the weather and climate of exoplanets -- Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and several academic research institutions have been using data collected from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to assess the weather and climate of at least 800 "exoplanets" that have been found to revolve around stars located outside of our solar system. The researchers are currently studying the "species" of exoplanets called "hot Jupiters" or roasters that are gas giants like Jupiters, but they orbit closely to their stars, making them blister under the heat. These planets appear to have a wide variety of climates. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

13 May 1930...A man was killed when caught in an open field during a hailstorm 36 miles northwest of Lubbock, TX. This event was the first, and perhaps the only, authentic death by hail in U.S. weather records. (David Ludlum)
13 May 1992...Record late season snow ended over the Tanana Valley and Yukon Uplands in Alaska. This storm set two records at Fairbanks. The 9.4 inches of snow from the storm was by far the greatest May snow on record, shattering the previous record of 4.5 inches set on 13 May 1964. The total water content of the melted snow and rain was also a new one-day record for May (0.78 Inches). Snowfall in excess of two feet occurred at elevations above 2000 feet. (Intellicast)
14 May 1834...The greatest snowstorm ever to occur in May hit the Northern Atlantic coastal states. The hills around Newbury, VT were covered with up to 24 inches of snow and the higher elevations around Haverhill, NH received up to three feet. (Intellicast)
14 May 1896...The mercury plunged to 10 degrees below zero at Climax, CO, the lowest reading of record for the U.S. during the month of May. (David Ludlum) This record has since been broken in May 1964 by a reading of 15 degrees below zero at White Mountain in California. (NCDC)
14 May 2001...A storm stalled south of Nova Scotia drenching Halifax with 3.89 inches of rain, the greatest daily May rainfall since records began in 1871. (The Weather Doctor)
15 May 1968...Only tornado of record to have ever touched down in Alaska was spotted near Anchorage. (The Weather Doctor)
16 May 1917...Marquette, MI had its latest opening of navigation on Lake Superior in history. (Intellicast)
16 May 1924...The temperature at Blitzen, OR soared to 108 degrees to set a state record for the month of May. The record was later tied at Pelton Dam on the 31 May 1986. (The Weather Channel)
17 May 1997...Two inches of snow fell at Herman, MI, marking the last measurable snow for the 1996-1997 snow season. The 384.0 inches for this just concluded snow season broke a state snowfall record that was set the previous 1995-1996 season of 347.0 inches. The average snowfall at Herman is 239.7 inches. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
17 May 1979...A reading of 12 degrees at Mauna Kea Observatory (elevation 13,770 feet) established an all-time record low temperature for the state of Hawaii. (The Weather Channel)
18 May 1980...Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupted, ejecting smoke and ash to a height of 63,000 feet. The smoke plume rose to a height of 80,000 feet. The ground was covered with heavy ash to the immediate northeast and visibility was reduced to less than one mile for a downwind distance of 400 miles. Five deaths were caused and over 2000 people were evacuated due to mudslides and flooding when the snowpack melted. Small particles in the cloud reached the East Coast in 3 days and circled the world in 19 days. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
18 May 1960...Salt Lake City, UT received an inch of snow, marking their latest measurable snowfall of record. (The Weather Channel)
19 May 1780...The infamous "dark day" in New England tradition occurred as noon was nearly as dark as night. Chickens went to roost, and many persons were fearful of divine wrath. Forest fires to the west of New England caused the phenomena. (David Ludlum)
19 May 1955...Lake Maloya, NM received 11.28 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record. (The Weather Channel)
19 May 1962...An all-time May record was set when the temperature climbed to 99 degrees at Central Park in New York City. (Intellicast)

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