WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

WEEK ONE: 3-7 September 2012

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Accessing and interpreting climate data -- If you would like to obtain a variety of climate data for your home town or state that are available from the National Weather Service, please read this week's Supplemental Information…In Greater Depth. This Supplemental not only identifies some of the sites to find the data, but also provides you with a brief explanation of the terminology used to identify the climate data.
Approaching the peak in the Atlantic hurricane season -- The historic or statistical annual peak in the Atlantic hurricane season will occur next week (10-12 September), as determined as the date during the entire season with most frequent number of named tropical cyclones (tropical storms and hurricanes), based upon over 100 years of record. This date corresponds closely with the time of peak sea-surface temperatures across those sections of the North Atlantic considered hurricane-breeding areas. [NWS National Hurricane Center] [Note: So far this Atlantic hurricane season, which commenced on 1 June 2012, twelve tropical cyclones have reached tropical storm or hurricane status. Of these twelve named tropical cyclones, five (Chris, Ernesto, Gordon, Isaac and Kirk) have become hurricanes. EJH]
Policy Statement on "climate change" issued by AMS -- During the third week of August, the American Meteorological Society issued a new policy statement on climate change, which is " intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large." This statement, based upon on current peer-reviewed scientific literature, provides a brief overview of how and why global climate has changed over the past century and how the climate will continue to change in the future. [American Meteorological Society]
University of Colorado to maintain the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences -- NOAA officials recently announced that the University of Colorado-Boulder has been selected to continue to operate the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) for at least the next five years. This cooperative institute, which was founded in 1967 as the first of 18 NOAA cooperative institutes currently scattered across the nation, conducts research on climate change, the improvement of weather models and the prediction of how solar storms can disrupt communication and navigation technologies. [NOAA News]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Probes of electric space around Earth continues for over 50 years -- Last Thursday morning, a twin spacecraft called the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) was launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station that is designed to collect data on the space weather in the dynamic and somewhat erratic Van Allen Belts. [NASA RBSP Mission] These radiation belts that surround the earth were discovered in 1958 by James Van Allen of the University of Iowa who studied the data collected from NASA's Explorer 1, the first American satellite launched. The inner belt contain a blend of protons and electrons and has an altitude as low as 600 miles above the Earth's surface, while the outer belt primarily contains energetic electrons and can expand out to an altitude of 37,000 miles above all but the planet's polar latitudes. [NASA Earth Observatory] The Helium Oxygen Proton Electron (HOPE) analyzer designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the instruments that is onboard the RBSP mission. [Los Alamos National Laboratory News Center]
Space Shuttle exhausts help track upper-level winds -- Although NASA's fleet of Space Shuttles has been retired, a group of scientists have been studying a sequence of images made of exhaust plume created during the last launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis in July 2011 to obtain information on the winds and the atmospheric environment at altitudes of approximately 70 miles above Florida. This level is in what is called the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Within a day after launch, polar mesospheric (or noctilucent) clouds were seen to form as part of NASA's Aeronomy In the Mesosphere (AIM) mission. [NASA AIM Mission]
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

Smoke plumes from Russian and African fires tracked by nation's newest environmental satellite -- An atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center assembled a set of images of plumes of smoke from fires burning across sections of Russia and Africa in early August as obtained from a sensor onboard the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) mission, the nation's newest Earth-observing satellite. The satellite's sensor used was the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS) that can track smoke aerosols lofted from the fires and carried as smoke plumes by upper-level winds. Smoke from wildfires not only affects local weather and air quality, but also influence regional climate through modifying the region's energy budget. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
Large methane reservoirs could be located below Antarctic ice sheet -- Researchers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands claim that their analysis of blocks of frozen lake sediments extracted from under the margins of the Antarctic ice sheet would indicate large deposits of the greenhouse gas methane. Apparently, these deposits formed from old organic matter that accumulated in sedimentary basins beneath the Ice Sheet and converted to methane by micro-organisms under oxygen-deprived conditions over millions of years. If the Ice Sheet shrinks and exposes the old sedimentary basins, the trapped methane could be released into the atmosphere. [University of California-Santa Cruz News]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Comparing the "great droughts" of 2012 and 1934 -- An essay written by a Nebraska ecologist for the Nature Conservancy and appearing in the "Prairie Ecologist" provides a detailed comparison of the weather conditions that have led to widespread drought across the nation's midsection in 1934 and 2012, discussing how these conditions have affected the plant communities across the prairies of eastern Nebraska near the state capital of Lincoln. [The Prairie Ecologist]
Summer's drought should alter the rest stops of migratory birds -- Wildlife biologists and ecologists are expressing concern that millions of migratory birds, such as ducks, geese and other waterfowl, could find fewer places to rest during their annual fall trip southward because of the current extensive drought that has developed along the flyways between North and South America. [USA Today]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Parched soils due to drought cause homes to crack -- Homeowners and home repair businesses have found that this summer's extensive and exceptional drought across a large section of the nation has resulted in many homes experiencing unexpected cracks in foundations and basements. The drought has caused a loss of soil moisture to great depths, which have caused the soil to shrink and homes to settle, with foundations cracking more than usual. [AP]
Nation's hurricane vulnerability is mapped -- Scientists with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) recently released their report that displays the vulnerability of each county across nearly two-thirds of the nation to a tropical cyclone (hurricane or tropical storm). A map was produced that shows the "Social Vulnerability Index," which describes where inland hurricane effects and socioeconomic factors combine to produce the greatest threat to people. This report and map should provide a new database for emergency responders. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]
Rise in sea level could place East Coast national parks at risk -- A recent report from the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization warns that one of the biggest threats facing the nearly 300 miles of the nation's Atlantic shoreline protected as part of the National Park system would be the rising sea levels that have been projected to rise by approximately one meter within the next century. The shoreline would include beaches at Cape Cod, Fire Island, Assateague Island, Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, Cumberland Island and Canaveral that account for 11 million visitors annually. [Green Blogs – New York Times]
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.

Concept of the Week: Touring the DataStreme Earth's Climate System Website

NOTE: This Concept for the Week is a repeat of that which appeared in last week's Weekly Climate News.

Welcome to DataStreme Earth's Climate System (ECS)! The Earth's Climate System website is an integral component of the DataStreme ECS (Earth's Climate System) course. The website is intended to deliver a wealth of climate information that is both pertinent to the course as well as being a reference site for you as you study Earth's climate system. The webpage is arranged in several sections. On Monday of each week of the course, we will post the current Weekly Climate News that includes Climate in the News (a summary listing of recent events related to climate), Concept of the Week (an in-depth analysis of some topic related to climate in the Earth system), and Historical Events (a list of past events important in the understanding of climatology). When appropriate, Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth will be provided on some topic related to the principal theme of the week.

You will use the DS Climate Studies website to access and download the "Current Climate Studies" that complement your Climate Studies Investigations Manual. These materials should also be available by noon (Eastern Time) on Monday. Click the appropriate links to download and print these electronic components of the investigations as well as your Chapter, Investigations and Current Climate Studies Response forms.

Beyond these course Learning Files, sections include Climate Information, Climate Variability, Climate Change, Societal Interactions and Climate Policy, and Extras. As the titles suggest, there are multiple uses for climate data and their interpretation. Here we explore some examples of the information provided in the various sections of the webpage.

The Climate Information section includes access to weather data, the raw material of climate synthesis, from the United States and the world under the heading "Observations and Data." Under this heading, click on "U.S. and World Weather Data." This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) page first directs you to "United States Weather" and provides channels to current weather data as well as radar graphics, weather maps, and aviation and marine weather. It then leads you to International Weather Conditions.

The second major subdivision of the course website encompasses Climate Variability. Climatic variability refers to the fluctuations and oscillations that may occur within the climate system at temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events. Select the link, "NOAA El Niño Page". The page that appears provides access to a wealth of background and information on El Niño and La Niña, including the animation showing sea surface temperatures (SST) in the tropical Pacific during recent months. To the left of the animation, click on "What's happening today?" The page of current tropical Pacific conditions that appears shows a small map to the right. Click on that map and again anywhere on the subsequent set of map panels to get an enlarged view of the latest conditions of SST and anomalies.

The third major section of the course website is termed Climate Change. Here we provide links to information and analyses that primarily focus on anthropogenic (human-made) change processes and results in the climate system. That prominently includes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's ("IPCC") latest classic report on atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions and their effects. Also linked are modeling results ("Models") based on those studies.

The last major section of the website is titled Societal Interactions and Climate Policy. This block contains information on the impacts of projected change on human societies around the world, beyond that listed in the IPCC report, and the international actions and debates regarding those issues. Select and click on "US Global Change Impacts Report" to the left in this section. This webpage introduces you to the latest comprehensive and authoritative report on climate change and its impacts in the United States, now and in the future. You will be directed to this report several times in this course.

Completing the course website is the Extras section of additional handy information for the course and individual study such as dictionaries of terms, maps and materials. Choose and examine one of the Climate Literacy links, either a PDF or the Word version. This document has recently been developed and released by NOAA to provide an overview of general concepts and information the general public and especially students should be aware of regarding the climate and the climate debate.

Concept of the Week: Questions

The first Climate Information link, "NOAA Climate Services", shows the Global Climate Dashboard where several graphs display Earth's temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide level, spring snow cover, etc. with a time slider than can be set to display from [(1800)(1880)(1940)] to the latest data in 2010.
Under the Societal Interactions and Climate Policy section, click the "U.S. Global Change Impacts Report" link. On their page, click the Home tab of the Menu bar along the top. Midway down the resulting page are two selector bars that show the climate impacts in the report are categorized by [(only regional)(only sectoral)(both regional and sectoral)] climate information.

Historical Events

3 September 1953...The temperature at Erie, PA reached 99 degrees, and Stroudsburg, PA established a state record for September with a reading of 106 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
3 September 1961...Denver, CO received 4.2 inches of snow, their earliest snow of record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
3 September 1970...During the early evening hours, in the midst of a severe hailstorm at Coffeyville, KS, a stone 17.5 inches in circumference and 1.67 pounds in weight was recovered. At the time, it was the largest measured hailstone in U.S. weather records. Average stone size from the storm was five inches in diameter, with another stone reportedly eight inches in diameter. (David Ludlum) A larger, though lighter stone has since fallen in Nebraska, 22 June 2003 (The Weather Doctor)
5 September 1925...The temperature at Centerville, AL soared to 112 degrees to establish a state record. Every reporting station in Alabama was 100 degrees or above that afternoon. (The Weather Channel)
5 September 1950...Hurricane Easy produced the greatest 24-hour rainfall in U.S. weather records up to that time. The hurricane deluged Yankeetown, on the upper west coast of Florida, with 38.70 inches of rain. While this US record has since been replaced by 43 inches of rain at Alvin, TX on 25-26 July 1979, it remains the 24-hour precipitation record for the Sunshine State. (David Ludlum) (NCDC)
5 September 1958...The heaviest hailstone recorded in Britain had a weight of 0.31 pounds (141 grams) and fell at Horsham (Sussex), Great Britain. (The Weather Doctor)
5 September 1970...Heavy rain from the remnants of a tropical system from the eastern Pacific spread across the Southwest as 11.40 inches fell in 24 hours at Workman Creek, AZ to establish a 24-hour precipitation record for the Grand Canyon State, while an estimated six inches of rain fell at Bug Point, UT, setting a 24-hour precipitation record for the Beehive State. (NCDC)
6 September 1840...The first official weather observation in Canada was taken at King's College, University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario by members of the British Royal Artillery. (The Weather Doctor)
6 September 1929...Iowa recorded its earliest snow on record as a few flakes noted in Alton at 9 AM. (The Weather Doctor)
6-7 September 1909...Topeka, KS was drenched with 8.08 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a record for that location. (The Weather Channel)
8 September 1900...The greatest weather disaster in U.S. records occurred when a hurricane struck Galveston, TX. Waves fifteen feet high washed over the island demolishing or carrying away buildings, and drowning more than 6000 persons. The hurricane destroyed more than 3600 houses, and total damage was more than $30 million. Winds to 120 mph, and a twenty-foot storm surge accompanied the hurricane. Following the storm, the surf was three hundred feet inland from the former water line. The hurricane claimed another 1200 lives outside of the Galveston area. (8^th-9^th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
8 September 1987...The afternoon high of 97 degrees at Miami, FL was a record for the month of September. (The National Weather Summary)
9 September 1921...A dying tropical depression unloaded 38.20 inches of rain upon the town of Thrall in southeastern Texas killing 224 persons. The 36.40 inches that fell in 18 hours represents a record for the United States. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
9 September 1971...Hurricane Ginger formed, and remained a hurricane until the 5th of October. The 27-day life span was the longest of record for any hurricane in the North Atlantic Ocean. (The Weather Channel)
9 September 1994...Hurricane John become an extratropical storm in the central north Pacific Ocean, ending a 29-day life as a hurricane, the longest lived hurricane on record. (The Weather Doctor)
9 September 2000...The Antarctic ozone hole extended to more than 11.4 million square miles over Antarctica, the single-day largest area of depletion ever measured. (The Weather Doctor)

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