13-17 December 2010

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2011 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 17 January 2011. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Climate News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

• Another view of a warming planet -- Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies have produced two global maps that show the temperature anomalies for two ten-year intervals from 1970-1979 and 2000-2009, which represent differences in the ten-year average temperatures and the 30-year climatological mean from 1951 to 1980. These temperature anomalies were based upon temperature data collected by more than 6300 surface weather stations, ship observations and satellite observations of sea-surface temperatures. Comparison of these two maps indicates during the recent ten-year span positive temperature anomalies occurred across most of the planet, indicative of warming, while during the earlier decadal span, large areas experienced some slight cooling as indicated by negative anomalies. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Effects of major South American drought seen by satellite --
Comparison of two satellite images made by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite in early December 2008 and 2010 shows the effects of the current widespread and severe drought across the Amazon Basin. One of the Amazon River's tributaries, the Negro River, is significantly smaller in the most recent image because of the lack of precipitation. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Watching the Sun from a satellite --
Animated images of a coronal mass ejection emanating from the Sun's surface have been assembled from data collected by the Large-Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) on SOHO, the joint NASA and European Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The SOHO had been operating for the last 15 years, monitoring solar activity on a continuous basis. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide measured over the open ocean --
Scientists from the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Centre and Norway's Bjerknes Center for Climate Research recently reported on their measurements of the flux of carbon dioxide on the surface North Atlantic during the High Wind Air-Sea Exchanges (HiWASE) experiment between September 2006 and December 2009. These measurements were conducted at higher wind speeds than previous measurements on the open sea. This air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide, which has an important influence on climate, may increase at high wind speeds because of the formation of bubbles in whitecaps associated with breaking waves. [National Oceanography Centre]
• New methods used to monitor volcanic ash cloud --
European researchers have found that use of the lightning data obtained from the United Kingdom's long-range lightning location network last spring could be used to estimate the properties of the volcanic plume that resulted from the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. They found that the volcanic plume was electrified and generated lightning. [Institute of Physics]
• 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

• Plant growth in carbon dioxide rich future could lesson global warming -- A new NASA computer modeling effort conducted by scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center indicates that plant growth on Earth where the atmospheric carbon dioxide had been doubled over current levels could have a cooling effect. The researchers claim that this negative feedback associated with increased plant growth in response to increased carbon dioxide levels would cause a lowering of the global temperature by 0.3 Celsius degrees (0.5 Fahrenheit degrees) and over land by 0.6 Celsius degrees (1.1 Fahrenheit degrees). [NASA's Earth Science News Team]
• Cloud "feedback" found to affect global climate and it changes --
Using data collected by the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument onboard NASA's Terra satellite and weather analyses from NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, a researcher at Texas A&M University calculated the amount of energy trapped by clouds as the climate varied over the last decade. He warns that increases in greenhouse gases will cause clouds to trap more heat, which will lead to additional warming, in a process known as the "cloud feedback." [Texas A&M]
• Short-term weather extremes may drive Greenland ice sheet flow --
A scientist at the University of British Columbia claims that sudden changes in water supply as found in the volume of meltwater contribute more to the increases in the flow and eventual loss of the Greenland ice sheet than the gradual increase of in global temperature. [University of British Columbia]
• Volcanoes on Kamchatka Peninsula seen from space --
An image made last weekend by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite showed a plume of ash and other volcanic material that was emanating from the Klyuchevskaya Volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, which became active again in late November 2010. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Earlier, a digital photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station provided an oblique view of several dormant stratovolcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

• Positive feedback may exist between northern wildfires and climate change -- Researchers at Ontario's University of Guelph, the University of Maryland, Michigan Technological University and the US Geological Society claim that recent changes in climate are causing wildfires across interior Alaska to burn more intensely during the last decade and pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than previously thought. [EurekAlert!]
• Israeli wildfire an example of climate change effects in Mediterranean --
A noted Israeli scientist at Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research notes that the recent deadly wildfire in the Carmel Mountain range in northern Israel represents an example of the possible changes in climate across the eastern Mediterranean that he and colleagues had warned of a decade ago. [Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

• First Atlantic hurricane forecast for next season -- During the last week, Philip J. Klotzbach, his mentor Professor Bill Gray, and other colleagues at Colorado State University released their first forecast for the upcoming 2011 North Atlantic hurricane season. They believe that this upcoming season should have an above average number of named tropical cyclones (tropical storms or hurricanes). They predict that 17 named tropical cyclones will form next season, of which nine should become hurricanes. Five of the hurricanes could become major hurricanes, reaching category-3 status on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale. They also anticipate an above-average probability that at least one major hurricane would make landfall along the coast of the continental US. Currently, they expect that El Niño conditions should not developed by the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season. Furthermore, sea surface temperatures in the far North Atlantic appear to remain near record high levels. Subsequent forecast updates will be issued beginning in April 2011. Details of their forecast appear in the report issued by the Tropical Meteorology Project. [Colorado State University Report] (Note this document is in a 39-page pdf file.)

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

• Past climate record in jeopardy as Alpine glacier shrinks -- Researchers at Ohio State University feel that a high-altitude glacier in the eastern European Alps may hold climate information that would extend the climate record of the region back a few thousand years. However, the researchers warn that this record appears to be in jeopardy as the glacier is dwindling rapidly. [Ohio State University Research News]
• Ice-age reptile extinctions may provide valuable lessons --
Researchers at the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Santa Cruz have found evidence of several surges in reptile extinctions on the Greek islands in the northeastern Mediterranean over the past 15,000 years. These researchers warn that these extinctions could provide a preview of likely responses of the ecosystem to future human-caused climate changes. [University of Michigan News Service]
• Solar activity changes affect local climate --
A scientist at Sweden's Lund University and colleagues claim that their research involving sediment cores off Mexico's Baja California indicates that variations in the surface water temperature in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean have varied inversely with solar activity during the early Holocene (between 11,000 and 7000 years ago). Specifically, high solar activity appeared to have had a cooling effect in this region.[EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

• Climate scientist warns of widespread suffering if climate change is not forestalled -- Professor Lonnie Thompson, a noted climate scientist at the Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center, recently warned that if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced, humans could be faced by widespread suffering because various environmental, societal and economic consequences associated with climate change could occur faster than humans can adapt. He also described the rapid and accelerating retreat of the world’s glaciers and ice sheets. [Ohio State University Research News]
• 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.

Historical Events:

• 13 December 1878...Los Angeles, CA fell to 30 degrees, the lowest temperature at that time for December. (Intellicast)
• 13 December 1915...A heavy snowstorm kicked off the snowiest winter in modern records for western New England. (The Weather Channel)
• 13 December 1962...A severe Florida freeze occurred. Morning low temperatures reached 35 degrees at Miami, 18 degrees at Tampa, and 12 degrees at Jacksonville. The renowned "Coldest December Day" was the coldest December weather of the 20th century and caused millions of dollars damage to crops and foliage. In Georgia, the morning low of 9 degrees below zero at Blairsville established a state record for the month of December. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 14 December 1924...The temperature at Helena, MT plunged 79 degrees in 24 hours, and 88 degrees in 34 hours. The mercury plummeted from 63 degrees above to 25 degrees below zero. At Fairfield, MT, the temperature plunged 84 degrees in just 12 hours, from 63 degrees at noon to 21 degrees below zero at midnight. (David Ludlum)
• 14 December 1987...A powerful storm spread heavy snow from the Southern High Plains to the Middle Mississippi Valley, and produced severe thunderstorms in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Kansas City, MO was blanketed with 10.8 inches of snow, a 24-hour record for December. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 15 December 1582...The Spanish Netherlands, Denmark and Norway adopted the Gregorian calendar.
• 15 December 1945...A record December snowstorm buried Buffalo, NY under 36.6 inches of snow, with unofficial totals south of the city ranging up to 70 inches. Travel was brought to a halt by the storm. (14^th-17^th) (The Weather Channel)
• 16 December 1890...A big snowstorm at Pittsburgh, PA dropped 23.9 inches in 24 hours, the greatest 24-hour snow for that city. (Intellicast)
• 16 December 2000...NASA announced that an ocean was most likely located beneath the icy surface of the Jovian moon Ganymede. (Wikipedia)
• 17 December 1884...A three-week blockade of snow began at Portland, OR. A record December total of 34 inches was received. (David Ludlum)
• 17 December 1930...Greensboro, NC experienced its greatest 24-hour snowfall when 14.3 inches fell. (Intellicast)
• 18 December 1919...The temperature fell to one degree below zero at Central Park in New York City for the earliest sub-zero temperature on record. (Intellicast)
• 18 December 1989...Unseasonably warm weather continued ahead of an arctic cold front. Miami FL equaled their record for December with an afternoon high of 87 degrees. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 19 December 1911...A 24-hour snowfall record occurred in Oklahoma with 22 inches at Beaver. (Intellicast)
• 19 December 1924...The Riverside Ranger Station in Yellowstone Park, WY reported a low of 59 degrees below zero, a December record for the contiguous U.S. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 19 December 1967...The second heavy snow in a week brought a total of 86 inches of snow to Flagstaff, AZ with a record snow depth of 83 inches. (Intellicast) (David Ludlum)

Return to DataStreme Earth Climate Systems website

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