20-24 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.

Happy Holidays to you and yours from the AMS DS Earth's Climate Systems Central Staff!

• Happy Winter Solstice! The winter solstice will occur during the early evening hours of Tuesday, 21 December 2010 (officially, at 2338Z, or 6:38 PM EST, 5:38 PM CST, etc.). At that time, the earth's spin axis will be oriented such that the sun appears to be the farthest south in the local sky of most earth-bound observers. While most of us consider this event to be the start of astronomical winter, the British call that day the "Midwinter Day", as the apparent sun will begin its northward climb again. For essentially all locations in the Northern Hemisphere, on Monday, the night will be the longest and the daylight on the following day will be the shortest of the year. Starting Wednesday, the length of darkness will begin to shrink as we head toward the summer solstice on 21 June 2011 at 1716Z.
• Dreaming of a White Christmas -- Using data collected from 340 first order stations for the 1961-1990 standard 30-year climatological reference interval, the National Climatic Data Center produced a "White Christmas?" report. A national map in this report shows the ratio of the number of times that a particular station experienced a white Christmas during the interval as a probability. For example, Des Moines, IA had only 15 Christmases between 1961 and 1990 when an inch or more snow cover was observed, so the probability that residents of Iowa's capital city would have a white Christmas is 50%. Across the nation, some locations are almost certain to have a white Christmas. These places can be found along the Canadian border surrounding the Great Lakes, such as International Falls, MN and Marquette, MI (both with 100%) and in New England, such as at Caribou, ME (97%). Stations at higher elevations in the Rockies also have a higher probability, such as at Flagstaff, AZ with a 56%. Sites close to the oceans typically have a lower probability, as the oceans tend to be relatively warm at this time of year. Thus, some coastal Alaskan stations have less than a 50% probability. Santa typically finds tough sledding on his journey to that half of the country south of latitude 40 degrees that is not mountainous, where chances of a white Christmas fall from 50% to 20% or less. You can monitor the current snow cover across North America using a snow chart that is based upon satellite data.

• Earth scientists receive prestigious awards -- Two eminent climate scientists were honored at the recent 2010 fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
  Pieter Tans, Ph.D., the head of the Carbon Cycle and Greenhouse Gases group at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, received the Roger Revelle Medal for his work on understanding the global carbon cycle and for raising public awareness of climate change. [NOAA News]
  Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, received the Athelstan Spilhaus Award for his contributions to improving public understanding of Earth science. [NASA JPL]

• Interplanetary probe sees where solar wind declines -- Voyager Project scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology recently reported that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which was launched 33 years ago, has reached a region of the heliosphere approximately 10.8 billion miles from the sun where the solar wind has decreased to near zero. The heliosphere is a bubble-shaped region of space created by the solar wind generated by the sun. The scientists believe that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is approaching interstellar space. [NASA JPL]

• Arctic Oscillation brings cold weather to Europe and northeastern US -- An image of the land surface temperature anomalies during the first week of December 2010 generated from data collected by the MODIS instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows a pattern that suggests the dominance of the Arctic Oscillation across polar and subpolar sections of North America and Eurasia. While positive land surface temperature anomalies (higher December 2010 temperatures than the corresponding 2002-2009 average temperatures) can be seen over northeastern Canada and southern Greenland, negative temperature anomalies were found across the Northeastern States and much of Europe. This pattern, which is similar to the pattern in December 2009, suggests a negative Arctic Oscillation with a blocking pattern over Greenland that permitted warm air to reside over Greenland, while cold arctic air surged southward over sections of Europe and the United States. [NASA Earth Observatory]

• Canadian seasonal climate summary for Autumn 2010 -- Climate scientists with Environment Canada recently reported that the nationwide average temperature during meteorological autumn 2010 (September through November) was the second warmest autumn since nationwide records began in 1948. The Canadian Archipelago had temperatures that were as much as 7 Celsius degrees above normal, while southern Alberta was the only region experiencing below average fall temperatures. Nationwide, autumnal precipitation across Canada was wetter than normal, with southern sections of Canada along the US border, eastern Canada and scattered areas of central Canada having above average precipitation. On the other hand, this past fall was dry across northern Canada, especially over the Yukon Territory and the Canada's Arctic Archipelago. [Environment Canada]

• Attempts made to explain West Antarctic ice loss -- Scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have been using satellite and airborne science missions to learn the mechanisms responsible for the loss of ice in the West Antarctica Ice Sheet. These scientists suspect that surface winds lift warm water from the Southern Ocean onto the continental shelf surrounding West Antarctica, resulting in the melting. They hope that their findings will improve predictions of sea level rise. [NASA's Earth Science News Team]

• NASA scientific balloon program resumes flights -- NASA's scientific high-altitude balloon program recently resumed flights following an extensive evaluation of its safety processes following a mishap during an April launch attempt from Australia. The high-altitude balloons carry instruments for scientific and technological investigations of Earth, the solar system and the universe. [NASA]

• 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]

• Monitoring of the solar output by satellite yields new information -- Solar scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Johns Hopkins University recently described their research involving the climate implications of the recent measurements made by the Solar Irradiance Monitor (SIM) instrument on NASA's Solar Radiation & Climate Experiment (SORCE) mission satellite. This instrument monitors the daily solar spectral irradiance, in various portions of the solar radiation spectrum. The scientists found that unexpected decreases in the irradiance within the ultraviolet were counterbalanced by increases in the visible and infrared irradiance over the last few years. The SORCE mission satellite also has the Total Solar Irradiance Monitor (TIM) that measures the total solar radiation reaching the top of the Earth's atmosphere. [NASA's Earth Science News Team]

• Studying urban heat islands from space -- Using satellite data, scientists from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have found that several factors affect the magnitude of an urban heat island, including the size and layout of the city and whether forests surround the urban area. Comparison of two thermal images obtained from the Enhanced Thematic Mapper on NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite made for Buffalo, NY and Providence RI shows differences in the magnitude of the heat island effect for these two urban areas, despite similar populations. [NASA Earth Observatory]
  An example of how a large urban area appears from space can be seen in a nighttime digital photograph of Las Vegas, NV made during the last month by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. [NASA Earth Observatory]

• Stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions seen as essential for polar bear survival -- A recent modeling study by scientists from the US Geological Survey, the US Forest Service, the University of Washington and the National Center for Atmospheric Research indicates that if more curbs were placed on the global emissions of greenhouse gases, the projected losses of Arctic sea ice would be reduced, along with the habitat for polar bears, a species that has been declared threatened by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Several scenarios in which greenhouse gas emissions are reduced in comparison to the business-as-usual scenario were run in the modeling study, which also considered other stress factors on the polar bears. [USGS Newsroom]

• Crops may benefit from wind turbines placed on farmland -- Researchers from the University of Colorado-Boulder and Iowa State University who made measurements of the wind and turbulence surrounding wind energy turbines in the Midwestern farm fields have found that these wind turbines may be beneficial to crops in the surrounding fields. The rotating turbine blades modify the microclimate, keeping corn and soybean crops cooler and drier, as well as helping these crops them fend off fungal infestations and improve their ability to extract growth-enhancing carbon dioxide from the air and soil. [University of Colorado at Boulder]

• Drought and higher temperatures increase risk for Southwestern forests -- Researchers from the US Geological Survey, other federal agencies and academia warn that projected increases in regional temperatures and aridity appear to threaten the health of forests across the Southwest, resulting in slower growing trees, more bark beetle outbreaks and more severe wildfires. [USGS Newsroom]

• Three-month seasonal weather outlook released -- Late last week, forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) released their three month outlook across the nation for January, February and March 2011, which includes the last two months of meteorological winter (the three months of December through February). They feel that strong La Niña conditions (an anomalous atmospheric and oceanic circulation regime that tends to favor lower than average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific) will continue to affect the winter weather. In the temperature outlook, the forecasters foresee a better than equal chance for above average winter temperatures across the south central sections of the nation, primarily from the southern Rockies eastward across the Rio Grande Valley to the central Gulf Coast and northward across the Plains into Kansas. Conversely, the West Coast along with the northern tier of states running from the Pacific Northwest eastward to the western Great Lakes, appear to a good chance of experiencing below average temperatures. The CPC three-month precipitation outlook calls for better than even chances that the southern tier of states, especially over Arizona and New Mexico, along with the Florida Peninsula and other sections of the Southeastern States could experience a good chance of dry conditions during the first three months of 2011. On the other hand, the Pacific Northwest the northern Rockies and the adjacent northern Plains, along with sections of the Midwest, extending from the lower Ohio Valley to the eastern Great Lakes, should have better than equal chances of above average January-March precipitation. A summary of the prognostic discussion of the outlook for non-technical users is available from CPC.
  At the same time, CPC also released its US Seasonal Drought Outlook that will run through March 2011. This outlook indicates improvement in the drought conditions across the Ohio and mid-Mississippi Valleys, along with scattered sections of around the western Great Lakes, the northern Rockies and the northern Sierras. Some marginal improvement was anticipated across scattered areas across the Great Basin and the lower Mississippi Valley. Drought conditions were anticipated to persist or develop across the southern tier of states, extending from Arizona eastward to the Carolinas and Florida. Sections of the central Rockies and the adjacent central Plains would also continue to experience drought conditions.

• Mummified Arctic forest reveals forest response to ancient climate change -- Based upon their analysis of samples of preserved forest remains from Canada's Ellesmere Island National Park, researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota recently reported on how spruce and birch trees struggled to endure global cooling between 2 and 8 million years ago. The researchers caution that as present-day Arctic ice melts due to modern climate change, the newly exposed wood from the mummified forests would rot, releasing significant amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which would contribute to global warming. [Ohio State University Research News]

• High biological productivity may have flourished in ancient ice-free Bering Sea -- Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Japan's Kyushu University and other international research institutions recently reported on their analysis of sediments collected from the floor of the Bering Sea during a nine-week expedition of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). The sediments deposited during the Pliocene Warm Period (3.5 to 4.5 million years ago) indicate ice-free conditions year-around Bering Sea, which also contained high biological productivity. [University of California, Santa Cruz]

• Ancient raindrops used to study mountain building off the West Coast -- Stanford University geologists used the isotopic residue associated with raindrops that fell between 65 and 28 million years ago across the region currently part of the American West to determine history of the elevations of the mountain ranges across this region. The isotopes of water incorporated in clays, carbonates and volcanic glass permitted the scientists to infer the elevation of the land when the rain fell. The scientists concluded that the uplift in the mountains progressed southward from what is now southern British Columbia approximately 50 million years ago, past southwestern Montana approximately 49 million years ago and to northern Nevada by 39 million years ago [Stanford University 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.

• 20 December 1989... Squalls produced more heavy snow in the Great Lakes Region. Erie, PA received 21 inches of snow, including four inches in one hour, to bring their total snow cover to 39 inches, an all-time record for that location. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 20 December 1990...Snow fell at Santa Maria, CA for the first time since records were kept. (Intellicast)
• 21 December 1892...Portland, OR was buried under an all-time record 27.5 inches of snow. (21^st-24^th) (The Weather Channel)
• 21 December 1989...Forty cities in the north central U.S., including thirteen in Iowa, reported record low temperatures for the date. The high for the date of 16 degrees below zero at Sioux Falls, SD was December record for that location. (The National Weather Summary)
• 23 December 1955...The barometric pressure dipped to 28.97 inches (981 millibars) at Boise, ID, an all-time record for that location. (The Weather Channel)
• 23 December 1983...The temperature plunged to 50 degrees below zero at Williston, ND to equal their all-time record. Minneapolis, MN reported an afternoon high of 17 degrees below zero, and that evening strong northerly winds produced wind chill readings of 100 degrees below zero in North Dakota. (The National Weather Summary)
• 24 December 1872...Extreme cold gripped the Upper Midwest on Christmas Eve. Downtown Chicago reported an all-time record low of 23 degrees below zero, which stood until January 1982, and Minneapolis, MN reached 38 degrees below zero. The afternoon high at Minneapolis was 17 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum)
• 24 December 1963...Memphis, TN set its all-time record low temperature with 13 degrees below zero, two days after a heavy 14.3-inch snowstorm. (Intellicast)
• 24 December 1982...The "Blizzard of 1982" hit eastern Colorado. Denver recorded 23.6 inches of snow in 24 hours, setting a new 24-hour record. Winds of 60 mph whipped the snow into 4 to 8 foot drifts. Stapleton Airport was closed for 33 hours and most roads were impassable. (Intellicast)
• 24 December 1983...The barometric pressure reached 31.42 inches at Miles City, MT to establish a high barometric pressure record for the U.S. It was the coldest Christmas Eve of modern record. More than 125 cities reported record low temperatures for the date, and all-time record lows for December were reported at seventeen cities, including Chicago with a low of 25 degrees below zero, and Havre, MT with a reading of 50 below zero. Sioux Falls, SD stayed below zero for eight consecutive days. Great Falls, MT dropped to a frigid 42 degrees below zero. Dayton, OH reached 13 degrees below zero. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
• 24 December 1989... Christmas Eve 1989 became one of the coldest on record. Fifty-seven cities in the south central and eastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date, including Elkins, WV with a reading of 22 degrees below zero. Key West, FL equaled their record for December with a morning low of 44 degrees. Huntsville, AL hit one degree above zero. The high of just 45 degrees at Miami, FL was an all-time record for that location after a morning low of 33 degrees. It smashed their previous record for the date by twenty degrees. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 25 December 1988...A massive winter storm made for a very white Christmas in the western U.S. Las Vegas, NV reported snow on the ground for the first time of record. Periods of snow over a five-day period left several feet of new snow on the ground of ski areas in Colorado, with 68 inches reported at Wolf Creek Pass. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 25 December 1989...It was a record cold Christmas Day for parts of the southeastern U.S. Morning lows of zero degrees at Wilmington, NC and five degrees below zero at Jacksonville, NC established all-time records for those two locations. Miami Beach, FL equaled a December record established the previous morning with a low of 33 degrees. Erie, PA set an all-time snowfall record for the month as light snow brought the total to 60.3 inches. Tallahassee, FL had a trace of snow, the first ever for Christmas Day. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
• 26 December 1909...Philadelphia, PA had its record snow to that date with 21 inches. The Delaware state record was also broken with 24 inches. (Intellicast)
• 26 December 1947...New York City recorded its all-time record snow with 25.8 inches at the Battery and 26.8 inches at Central Park. A record 26.4 inches of snow fell in 24 hours, with as much as 32 inches reported in the suburbs. White Plains had 6 inches in one hour with 19 inches in just 6 hours. The heavy snow brought traffic to a standstill, and snow removal cost eight million dollars. Thirty thousand persons were called upon to remove the 100 million tons of snow. The storm claimed 27 lives. (26^th-27^th) (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
• 26 December 1983...Miami, FL established a December record with a morning low of 33 degrees. Just three days earlier, and again three days later, record high temperatures were reported in Florida, with daytime highs in the 80s. (The National Weather Summary)
• 26 December 1993...Bitterly cold air prevailed across the north central states. Sault Ste Marie, MI plunged to 31 degrees below zero to set a new December record. Tower, MN reached a frigid 50 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 26 December 2004...A massive earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale approximately 100 miles off the western coast of Sumatra created a tsunami that caused devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean. The death toll is currently estimated at more than 300,000. Officials say the true toll may never be known, due to rapid burials. Indonesia was worst affected with as many as 219,000 people killed. (Wikipedia)

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