WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

PREVIEW WEEK: 2-6 September 2013

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.
A change in seasons -- This past Saturday, 31 August 2013, marked the end of Northern Hemisphere's meteorological summer, the three-month span of June, July and August that meteorologists frequently use for record keeping processes. Meteorological autumn (September, October and November) for the Northern Hemisphere started the following day, 1 September 2013. Meteorologists frequently use these three-month meteorological seasons for record keeping processes. Additional information will be presented in the next several weeks concerning meteorological seasons and the astronomical seasons, such as the familiar autumn that begins on the autumnal equinox in three weeks (Sunday, 22 September 2013).
High-quality maps of September temperature and precipitation normals across US available -- The PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University has prepared high-resolution maps depicting the normal maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation totals for September across the 48 coterminous United States for the current 1981-2010 climate normals interval. These maps, with a 800-meter resolution, were produced using the PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) climate mapping system.
September weather calendar for a city near you -- The Midwestern Regional Climate Center maintains an interactive website that permits the public to produce a ready to print weather calendar for any given month of the year, such as September, at any of approximately 270 weather stations around the nation. (These stations are NOAA's ThreadEx stations.) The entries for each day of the month includes: Normal maximum temperature, normal minimum temperature, normal daily heating and cooling degree days, normal daily precipitation, record maximum temperature, record minimum temperature, and record daily precipitation; the current normals for 1981-2010.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Tracking fires across North America over the last six months -- An image was generated from data collected from NOAA's fleet of satellites that shows the location and the timing of the 323,828 fires that were detected beginning in February 2013 and running through late August. These fires included wildfires and other generic types. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
California's massive Rim Fire is studied from space -- During the last week, the Rim Fire continued to expand and burn across the region of California in and near Yosemite National Park. As of midweek, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection had declared this fire to be the seventh largest wildfire in California's recorded history. New images obtained from sensors onboard satellite images from NASA's Aqua and Terra spacecraft provide visualization of some of the many facets of the fire's effects on the landscape and atmosphere. The fire's plume of carbon monoxide pollution at an altitude of approximately 18,000 feet is shown in an image from Aqua's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument. An image obtained from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft measure the height of smoke plumes using stereoscopic techniques. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Extent of this summer's Arctic sea ice may not break record -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space claim that while the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean continues to shrink toward its annual "minimum" that should occur in mid-September, this year's projected late-summer minimum does not appear to be headed for a new record smallest extent that had been previously set on 16 September 2012. [NASA Global Climate Change News]
Long-term agreement for weather and climate monitoring signed between NOAA and EUMETSAT -- During this past week, the top officials from NOAA and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) signed a long-term cooperative agreement at the European Union (EU) Delegation in Washington, DC, which is designed to ensure the continuation of a 30-year relationship involving space-based weather, water and climate monitoring. [NOAA News]
Mega-canyon found under Greenland Ice Sheet -- Using airborne radar data, American and European scientists participating in NASA's Operation IceBridge have discovered a large 460-mile long canyon under Greenland's Ice Sheet running from near the center of the island northward to the fjord of the Petermann Glacier. The radar unit called the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder is operated by the Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas and its signal can pass through vast layers of ice to measure its thickness and the shape of bedrock below. [NASA IceBridge]
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]

CLIMATE FORCING

Public comment sought on new report involving greenhouse gases and agriculture -- Last week, the Climate Change Program Office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Office of the Chief Economist a released for public comment a new report that outlines a set of scientific methods for quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon storage at the local farm, ranch or forest scale. This 564-page report entitled "Science-Based Methods for Entity-Scale Quantification of Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks from Agriculture and Forestry Practices" was produced by 38 scientists from academia and the federal government who are experts in GHC and agriculture. [USDA Office of Chief Economist]
Widening seasonal swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide seen in Northern Hemisphere -- Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and NOAA have found that the range in the seasonal cycle of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration levels has increased during the last 50 years as the annual levels have continued to increase. The increased seasonal amplitude occurs between a minimum CO₂ gas level in late summer-early fall and a maximum concentration in spring. The researchers based their findings on a multi-year airborne survey of atmospheric chemistry called HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO), with observations made from aircraft at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet. [NOAA Research]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Changing climate projected to worsen wildfires -- A team of environmental scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences warns that its research would suggest wildfire seasons across the western United States by 2050 could be about three times longer than at present, be twice as smoky and could burn a wider area across the West. They based their findings on a set of internationally recognized climate scenarios, decades of historical meteorological data, and records of past fire activity. [Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences]

CLIMATE AND IMPACTS ON HUMAN HEALTH

Winter depression may not be that common -- Researchers at Oregon State University and their colleagues from other institutions claim that the occurrence of wintertime depression may not be as common as often believed, since they found that neither time of year nor weather conditions appeared to influence depressive symptoms. However, their study on participants in Iowa and western Oregon does not negate the existence of clinically diagnosed seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, but instead shows that people may be overestimating the impact that seasons have on depression in the general population. [Oregon State University News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Remote precipitation monitoring program designed to help West African nations adapt to seasonal swings in rainfall -- Organizations from the United States and the United Kingdom are providing assistance to West African nations to adapt to seasonal changes in weather that can produce food shortages in the West African Sahel and the Horn of Africa because of extensive drought and excessive flooding. From the US, NOAA has been supporting a prototype rainfall monitoring system called "Rainwatch" that provides real-time precipitation data from monitoring stations and tracks the key seasonal attributes important for food production. This GIS (geographic information system)-based system was developed by the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies at the University of Oklahoma. The Rainwatch products are used by the Africa Climate Exchange Project (AfClix), a knowledge transfer project developed by the United Kingdom's University of Reading to facilitate the exchange of climate science and adaptation knowledge between parties in Sudan, Senegal and the United Kingdom. [NOAA Research]
Sea level rise tool available -- NOAA's Ocean Service recently announced that a sea level rise planning tool is available on the Internet that would help governmental officials, planners and the public make planning decisions based upon future rises in sea level along the Middle Atlantic coast near New York City. This sea level rise planning tool was developed following Hurricane Sandy through a partnership between NOAA, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Global Change Research Program. [NOAA Ocean Service News]
Considering the implications of rising global sea level -- The feature article in the September 2013 issue of National Geographic, the official magazine of the National Geographic Society, is called "Rising Seas." This 30-page article, authored by Tim Folger, describes how rising sea level associated with climate change and the storm surges associated with storms such as Hurricane Sandy have placed many coastal cities in danger. A discussion is made of various proposed flood control projects. A large poster shows a map of the globe without ice. Graphics from the article are available on the National Geographic website. [National Geographic]
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

Magmatic water detected on Moon's surface -- Scientists analyzing data collected by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission report that water has been detected on the Moon's surface with hints indicating more water below the surface. This magmatic water, which originated from an unknown source deep beneath the lunar surface, is locked in mineral grains on the surface of the Moon. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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

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 2013.
Under the Societal Interactions and Climate Policy section, click the "U.S. Global Change Research Program" link. Near the bottom of 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. ***This is an updated question.***

Historical Events:

2 September 1935...Perhaps the most intense hurricane ever to hit the U.S. struck the Florida Keys with sustained winds of over 155 mph with gusts exceeding 200 mph. The "Labor Day Hurricane" produced a fifteen-foot tide and waves thirty feet high. More than 400 persons perished in the storm on that Labor Day, including many World War I veterans building a bridge from the Keys to the mainland. The barometric pressure at Matecumbe Bay, FL hit a record low for the U.S. of 26.35 inches of mercury (or 892.3 millibars). (David Ludlum)
2 September 1950...The temperature at Mecca, CA soared to 126 degrees to establish the U.S. record high temperature for the month of September. The low that morning was 89 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
2 September 1961...Denver, CO received 4.2 inches of snow, the earliest measurable snow on record for this city. (Intellicast)
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)

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