WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

10-14 December 2012

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2013 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 14 January 2013. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Climate News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Great Lakes water level data available to public on new website -- Early last week NOAA officials officially unveiled their new "NOAA Great Lakes Water Level Dashboard," which is a single interactive website that permits the public, students, educators and environmental researchers the ability to compare decades of historic and current water level data on the North American Great Lakes. These data are from both operational and experimental datasets and reflect the long-term variations in Lake levels associated with climate variability and climate change. Future Lake levels are available from forecasting models, especially the Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System operated by NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. [NOAA News]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Annual Arctic Report Card released -- Last week, NOAA's Climate Program Office released its 2012 annual update of the "Arctic Report Card," a peer-reviewed report of the state of the air, ocean and ice in the Arctic basin prepared by an international team of 141 scientists from 15 countries, including those from NOAA. These experts have found above-average air and water temperatures in this region in 2012, but nothing that was "remarkable" when compared with those over the last decade. However, record low amounts of Arctic snow cover were reported last June and the smallest areal coverage was found in summer Arctic sea ice in early September. [NOAA News]
Review of Atlantic hurricane season -- With the end of the official 2011 hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins last week, NOAA forecasters assessed the season and the forecasts that they had made earlier. They noted that the 2011 Atlantic season was active and that the 19 named tropical cyclones and seven hurricanes, including three major hurricanes, matched their earlier predictions. [Note: A short-lived, unnamed tropical storm that formed in early September between Bermuda and Nova Scotia was recently added to the list.] The 19 named tropical cyclones represent the third highest total (tied with 1887, 1995, and 2010) over the last 161 years. While only one hurricane (Irene) hit the United States, NOAA officials feel that it helped break "hurricane amnesia" that appeared to develop by the public especially in the Northeast because of the length of time since the last-falling hurricane. [NOAA News] The NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory released a 4.5 minute animation of imagery collected by the NOAA GOES-13 satellite through the entire 2011 hurricane season (1 June-30 November). [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
Hurricane experts, Professor William Gray and Philip Klotzbach from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, also issued a report (in pdf format) in which they summarized the 2011 Atlantic tropical cyclone activity and assessed their seasonal and two-week forecasts. They noted that while tropical cyclone activity was above average, many of these tropical cyclones were relatively weak, with only a slightly above average number of intense hurricanes. They admitted that the activity level was below their earlier predictions.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

US Climate Reference Network expanded across Alaska -- Officials with NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) recently announced that plans have been made to deploy 17 additional US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) by 2018 to bring the total number of USCRN stations to 29 in the 49th State. The USCRN stations are automatic weather stations placed in pristine environments such as national parks that are expected to be free of development for many decades with the purpose of monitoring and revealing changes in the environment. Hourly observations of temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, low-level wind speed, humidity and ground surface temperature are made. Currently, 114 USCRN stations are operating in the conterminous United States and two stations in Hawaii, in addition to the 12 stations in Alaska. [NOAA/NCDC News] The USCRN recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Additional information on this network is available from a separate news item in NOAA/NCDC News.
Winds in southern New England have weakened, but not along coast -- Oceanographers at the University of Rhode Island report that their analysis of nearly 40 years of wind speed data collected from airports in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and an offshore buoy indicates a decline in average wind speeds by approximately 15 percent at inland sites, while wind speeds have remained steady at an offshore site. The researchers suggest that the decline in wind speeds could be due to increased urbanization and changing weather patterns due to changing climate. [University of Rhode Island]
Partnership aims to improve powerful West Coast winter storms powered by "atmospheric rivers" -- During the last month, NOAA scientists and their colleagues with the California Department of Water Resources and Scripps Institution of Oceanography have installed the first of four permanent "atmospheric river observatories" in California that will better monitor the powerful "atmospheric rivers" that travel long distances across the North Pacific and batter the West Coast as major winter storms. The atmospheric rivers, which are also called the "pineapple express," contain humid air originating in the tropical and subtropical North Pacific, especially near Hawaii. While these storms bring beneficial precipitation in terms of coastal rain and mountain snow that can help fill reservoirs, they can also produce destructive floods and debris flow. The four coastal observatories would have wind profiler radar to measure wind direction and wind speed aloft and GPS water vapor instruments designed to measure the precipitable water in the atmospheric column in addition to the standard meteorological instruments used to measure surface weather elements at a traditional weather station. The data collected from the atmospheric river observations would also be used to help predict futures impacts of the winter storms. [NOAA News]
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 AND THE BIOSPHERE

Early signs of drought seen in plant stress images from space -- Scientists with the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) have developed a method to use data from NASA and NOAA satellites to map plant stress. An animation of these national plant stress maps from January 2010 through September 2012 show how vegetation signaled the onset of drought as plants became stressed when soil moisture fell below adequate levels due to a lack of rain and high temperatures. The researchers claim that these satellite-derived plant stress maps could soon aid in drought forecasts and prove useful for applications such as crop yield estimates. [NASA GSFC]
Ancient microbes found in remote Antarctic lake -- An international team of scientists that included those from NASA have discovered a community of bacteria in Lake Vida, a remote and unique lake in one of Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys. These bacteria were discovered approximately 65 feet beneath the icy surface in one of Earth's darkest, saltiest and coldest habitats. This discovery of like in a lake that has essentially no oxygen and has high nitrous oxide levels is significant because it helps increase understanding of how life can sustain itself in these extreme environments. [NASA JPL]

CLIMATE FORCING

Wildfires darken Greenland snowpack leading to increased melting -- A geography professor at Ohio State University recently reported that satellite derived images from NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite, were used to detect a reduction in the surface reflectivity, or albedo, of the Greenland snow and ice sheet due to smoke particles that collected on these surfaces from Arctic wildfires fires during the summer of 2012. The locations of the wildfires were obtained from thermal images provided by the from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. He calculated that a six-percent drop in reflectivity in Greenland over the last decade, would create sufficient warming to initiate melting on the entire surface of the ice sheet each summer. [Ohio State University]
Increased atmospheric acidity detected in Greenland ice cores -- Researchers at the University of Washington and their colleagues claim that their analysis of ice core samples from the Greenland ice cap shows a decrease in levels of the isotope nitrogen-15 commencing in 1772 at the start of the Industrial Revolution, which would suggest a corresponding increase in nitrates associated with the burning of fossil fuels and an increase in the acidity in the atmosphere. [University of Washington Today]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

First Atlantic hurricane forecast for next season -- During the first week of December, Philip J. Klotzbach, his mentor Professor Bill Gray, and other colleagues at Colorado State University usually released their initial quantitative forecast of the tropical cyclone activity for the forthcoming hurricane season in the North Atlantic Basin. However, they have elected to discontinue this quantitative forecast and provide a qualitative discussion as to what they perceive as the factors that would determine the hurricane activity across the basin in 2013. They are using a new way of assessing next year's activity in terms of two primary physical parameters involving: 1.) the strength of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) and 2.)
the phase of ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation). They will make their first quantitative forecast in early April 2013. Details of their assessment appear in the report issued by the Tropical Meteorology Project. [Colorado State University Report]
At the end of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Philip Klotzbach and Professor Bill Gray issued a summary report of the just-concluded season in which they provided a verification of their seasonal and two-week forecasts. They noted that with 19 named tropical cyclones, the season was more active than they had anticipated in their seasonal forecasts (10 tropical cyclones in their initial April forecast), as a large number of weak tropical cyclones developed in the northeast section of the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic. [Colorado State University Report]
Professor Bill Gray and Phil Klotzbach have written a discussion on their views of Hurricane Sandy and its potential relationship to climate change caused by increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. [The Tropical Meteorology Project]
Updated national drought outlook issued -- Forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center recently released their updated Seasonal Drought Outlook covering the 2012-13 meteorological winter, the upcoming three months of December, January and February. These forecasters foresee a persistence of drought conditions across a large area of the nation extending from sections of the Mississippi Valley westward across the Plains and the Rockies into the Great Basin. Drought conditions were also expected to continue across sections of the Southeast. The forecasters feel that some improvement in the drought conditions could occur across scattered sections of the Mississippi Valley, the northern Rockies and sections of California, along with a few sections of the Southeast. Improvement was also anticipated across a few sections of the Midwest and the Middle Atlantic States. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center] Note: a Seasonal Drought Outlook Discussion is included describing the forecasters' confidence.
Increased wildfire risk across nation is foreseen -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and his colleagues using NASA satellite data for current fire trends and predictions generated from climate models to predict that drier conditions in the future would cause an increase in wildfire activity across the United States over the next several decades. In addition, the amount of carbon emissions from these wildfires together with the length and strength of the fire seasons could also change as a result of future climate conditions. [NASA GSFC]
Elevated mercury levels in coastal fog linked to deep ocean water upwelling -- In research conducted by an environmental toxicologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz and his colleagues, elevated mercury levels in coastal fog in California suggests that upwelling of deep ocean water along the coast brings mercury to the sea surface, where it enters the atmosphere and is absorbed by fog droplets. The mercury levels in fog, which are in parts-per-trillion, are not considered to be a health concern. [University of California, Santa Cruz]
Stability of Antarctic ice shelf affected by massive crevasses -- A team of researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder have found that the presence of gaping crevasses in the ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula appear to make the ice shelf more susceptible to collapse. However, the scientists who have spent four summer campaigns on the ice found that ribbons running through the Larsen C Ice Self are more prone to bending that to breaking, which makes the shelf more resilient. [University of Colorado, Boulder]

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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

10 December 1919...A 28-inch snowfall for 24 hours at Bend, OR set a new 24-hour snowfall record for the state. (Intellicast)
10 December 1946...The temperature at New York City soared to 70 degrees, the highest ever for a December day. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
10 December 1949...The barometric pressure at Las Vegas, NV reached a record low reading of 29.17 inches (987.8 millibars). (The Weather Channel)
10 December 1995...Intense lake effect snow squalls buried Buffalo, NY under 37.9 inches in 24 hours, the city's greatest 24-hour snowfall and biggest snowstorm ever. Watertown, NY recorded 39 inches in just 12 hours and had 4 inches of snow an hour each hour for six consecutive hours. (Intellicast)
11 December 1932...Very cold weather prevailed along the West Coast. San Francisco received 0.8 inch of snow, and at the airport the temperature dipped to 20 degrees. At Sacramento, CA, the mercury dipped to 17 degrees to establish an all-time record low for that location. Morning lows were below freezing from the 9^th to the 15^th at Sacramento, and the high on the 11^th was just 34 degrees. The cold wave dealt severe damage to truck crops and orange groves in the Sacramento Valley. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
12 December 1882...Portland, OR was drenched with 7.66 inches of rain, a record 24-hour total for that location. (12^th-13^th) (The Weather Channel)
12 December 1995...A five-day lake-effect snowstorm came to an end at Sault Ste Marie, MI over which time 61.7 inches fell, by far the biggest snowstorm ever. In one 24-hour span, 27.8 inches fell to set the 24-hour record. The snow depth reached 50 inches at one time, tying the record. The storm brought the monthly total to 82.5 inches, the greatest monthly total ever. The city went on to set a new winter season record with well over 200 inches. (Intellicast)
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)

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