WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

DataStreme ECS WEEK FIVE: 26-30 September 2016

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Satellite view of Earth on the autumnal equinox and the solstices -- With the passage of the autumnal equinox last Thursday (22 September), a sequence of three true color images was produced from the data collected by the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite showing a portion of the Eastern Hemisphere not only for last Thursday, but also for the 2016 summer solstice and the 2015 winter solstice. These three images are meant to show the seasonal cycle in solar illumination. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
Mosaic of New England surface temperatures seen from satellites -- An image generated from data collected from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite nearly two weeks ago shows a complex mosaic of "skin temperatures" across New England and neighboring sections of New York State, New Jersey, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The skin temperature, or radiometric surface temperature, represents the temperature immediately at the Earth's surface that is detected by a radiometer on the satellite. The image is color coded in terms of temperature and the resulting mosaic is due to the numerous surfaces ranging from cold high elevation mountains to warm heat islands and the various water bodies that include lakes, rivers and the North Atlantic Ocean with its Gulf Stream. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
September is National Preparedness Month -- The month of September has been declared National Preparedness Month (NPM), which is aims to educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to all types of emergencies, including natural disasters. NPM is sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), which has provided a toolkit of marketing materials to help promote the month, is the lead on this campaign that was originally launched in 2004. The theme for 2016 NPM is "Don't Wait. Communicate. Make Your Emergency Plan Today," with an emphasis on preparedness for youth, older adults, and people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs.
During Week 5 (25-30 September), the weekly hazard-focused theme is "Lead Up to National Day of Action." [FEMA's Ready.gov]
NOAA's National Weather Service is working with FEMA to communicate the importance of emergency preparedness as a key component of its Weather-Ready Nation campaign. [NOAA Weather Ready Nation]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2016 Campaign is underway -- The tenth in the series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2016 will continue through Saturday, 1 October. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation (Cygnus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus in the Southern Hemisphere) with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The next series in the 2016 campaign is scheduled for 21-31 October 2016. [GLOBE at Night]
End of the growing season -- If you live in the northern portion of the country, the growing season may have already ended as cold air masses have moved southeastward from Canada. Check the interactive maps produced by the Midwestern Regional Climate Center's Vegetation Impact Program (VIP) that show the date of the first occurrence of 28-degree and 32-degree Fahrenheit temperature readings during this fall across the 48 coterminous United States. (Use the "Current Season Freezes" in the "Shaded Maps Menu" on left to select the desired map.) Comparison can be made with corresponding maps showing the median dates of occurrence of the first 32-degree (or 28-degree) Fahrenheit temperatures (in the appropriate "Climatologies" sections) across the lower 48 states based upon a 30-year time series. (The median date means that half of the occurrences of a 32-degree reading over the 30-year normal occur prior to this date, while the other half occur after this date.) Additional other freeze-climatology maps are available including the earliest and latest dates of first autumnal freeze. Following first frost, some delightful days should occur during October and early November in what is often called "Indian Summer."
Start of a new water year -- On Saturday, 1 October 2016, the new water year of 2017 will begin. As defined by the US Geological Survey and used by hydrologists in reports dealing with surface water supply, the "water year" is defined as the 12 months commencing on 1 October of any given year and ends on 30 September of the following year. The water year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends, such that the 2017 water year runs through 30 September 2017.
High-quality maps of October temperature and precipitation normals across US available -- The PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University's website has prepared high-resolution maps depicting the normal maximum, minimum and precipitation totals for October 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.
October 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 October, 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.
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta climatology is available -- The world famous Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta takes place near the beginning of each October; this year the 43th annual event will start this coming Saturday (1 October) and run through 9 October 2016. This nine-day festival involves as many as 750 hot-air balloons and is held over the Rio Grande Valley in the Albuquerque (NM) metropolitan area at this time of year because of the cool nights, sunny days and the lack of thunderstorm activity. Because of the cool autumn nights, the "Albuquerque Box" weather phenomenon occurs, which features light winds from the north near the surface draining down the Rio Grande Valley, while winds from the south aloft permit the balloons to move up and down in this box like feature so as to hover over a small geographic area. The Albuquerque National Weather Service Forecast Office has posted the Balloon Fiesta Climatology that includes the daily temperature and precipitation data for nearly each year of the event along with a further description of the "Albuquerque Box."
Monitoring the drought -- During this past summer, western sections of the nation continued to experience major drought. See how the drought is monitored and assessed by reading this week's Supplemental Information…In Greater Depth.

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Review of August 2016 (and seasonal) weather and climate for the globe -- Preliminary data analyzed by scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) indicated:

The global combined land and ocean average surface temperature for August 2016 was 1.66 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century average (1901-2000) for the month, which makes last month the warmest August since a sufficiently dense network of global temperature records began in 1880. When considered separately, the land surface surface temperature for this recently concluded month also was the highest August temperature in the 137-year record, with a monthly temperature that was approximately 1.29 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century average; the August 2016 land surface temperature was 0.34 Fahrenheit degrees above the previous August record set last year. The monthly temperature departure of the ocean surface was 1.39 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century average, which was the second highest August temperature on record, slightly (0.04 Fahrenheit degrees) behind the record August temperature that was set one year ago. ENSO neutral conditions prevailed during August 2016 even though sea surface temperatures were below-average across the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
A global map of Selected Significant Climate Anomalies and Events for August 2016 is available from NCEI.
During the last three months, which constitutes meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere and meteorological winter in the Southern Hemisphere, the combined global land and ocean average temperature for 2016 was 1.60 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century average, which also was the highest for this three-month period since 1880, being 0.07 Fahrenheit degrees above the previous record set one year ago. The June-August 2016 temperatures for both the ocean and land, when considered separately, were highest for any boreal summer in the last 137 years.
According to data provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) , the average August Arctic sea ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere was approximately 23.1 percent below the 1981–2010 average, making it the fourth smallest August Arctic sea ice extent since satellite records began in 1979. In the Southern Hemisphere, the August 2016 Antarctic sea ice extent was the 19th largest August extent in the 38-year record.
[NOAA/NCDC State of the Climate]

CLIMATE MONITORING

Two new world lightning extremes announced -- During the last week, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced two new lightning extreme events determined by a WMO committee of experts: the longest reported distance of a lightning stroke of approximately 200 miles across the Oklahoma skies in 2007 and the longest reported duration for a single continuous lightning flash of 7.74 sections in southern France in 2012. [WMO's World Weather & Climate Extremes Archive – Arizona State University]
A cleared Northwest Passage detected from space -- Images made from sensors onboard the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite in early August 2016 revealed ice-free channels representing both the southern and northern routes of the famous Northwest Passage between islands of the Canadian Archipelago. The Northwest Passage, which has been sought by explorers for centuries, is a sea route connecting the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through sections of the Arctic Ocean. Until the last few decades, ice covered the waters of the Northwest Passage, making it impassable. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
An in-depth feature on sea ice -- NASA Earth Observatory has a feature article that provides a detailed description of how sea ice is formed, how sea ice plays a fundamental role in polar ecosystems, the sea ice life cycle and the monitoring of sea ice over decades in both the Arctic and Antarctic. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Aerial surveys made of Greenland's lesser-known glaciers -- A collection of aerial images was made of Greenland glaciers by scientists and crew participating in this year's edition of NASA's Operation IceBridge campaign that is designed to make annual aerial surveys of polar ice in the Arctic basin. These images were obtained in early September from a high-resolution digital camera installed under the HU-25A Guardian aircraft. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Maps are being generated of the undersides of several of Greenland's outlet glaciers by researchers involved with NASA's Operation IceBridge mission who used airborne radar to study the geometry of Greenland’s glacier valleys. [NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System Earthdata]
Tethered balloon used to track winter ozone production in Utah -- Over the last several winters, NOAA researchers have been obtaining ozone concentration data in the lower atmosphere from a "tethersonde," or an instrumented weather balloon attached to a cable anchored to the ground, in order to track near-surface ozone production in eastern Utah's Uinta Basin. Sunlight can convert emissions from oil and gas emissions into harmful ground-level ozone. The instrument onboard the tethersonde makes measurements at various levels in the atmosphere as the tethered balloon is alternately raised and lowered by a winch. [NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Biocrust 3 Conference to determine how living desert surface affects Southwestern deserts and globe's drylands -- During this week (26-30 September) scientists from 21 countries will meet at the Third International Workshop on Biological Soil Crusts, or BIOCRUST 3 Conference, in Moab, UT to discuss how the living skin of the desert, called biological soil crusts (biocrusts), is critical to climate and ecosystem health in the Southwest US and other dryland areas around the world. [USGS News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Animations made of ENSO forecasts -- A blog was written in the ClimateWatch Magazine by a staff member of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center that included animations of the North American Multi-Model Ensemble forecasts of ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) since early 2015. She noted that the El Niño event of 2015-16 grew rapidly as forecast, but that the La Niña event that had been forecast during this past spring and summer has not developed and its forecast appears to be shrinking. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Exploring how growing urban areas affect nation's largest estuary -- A feature NASA Earth Observatory story, which is part of a multi-part series entitled Chesapeake Bay Watershed, describes how the urban and suburban areas surrounding Chesapeake Bay such as Baltimore, MD also contribute large amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous and sediments that represent the main pollutants clouding the Bay waters and cause algal blooms and dead zones. Images made from data collected by the sensors onboard NASA's Landsat satellite show the expansion of impervious surfaces in Baltimore and surrounding suburbs in 1984 and 2010.[NASA Earth Observatory]
Perception of changing climate varies among generations in subarctic Alaska -- Researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) and their partners recently reported on the results compiled from their interviews conducted in four rural indigenous communities across subarctic Alaska. Their results illustrate that while the residents in these communities agreed that the climate was changing across the region, the magnitude of these changes were perceived differently among different generations of respondents in these communities. The older participants, who had observed more overall change, viewed the observed changes in winter temperatures and snowfall as being outside of normal weather variability, while the younger respondents felt that weather is always variable. [USGS News]
Food security report receives a top award from Ag Department -- A comprehensive report entitled "Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the US Food System" written by 32 experts from 19 federal, academic, nongovernmental, intergovernmental, and private organizations in the United States, Argentina, Britain, and Thailand warning of the impacts of climate change on the world's food security has won the 2016 Abraham Lincoln Honor Award, considered to be the top US Department of Agriculture (USDA) award. The researchers claim that higher temperatures and altered precipitation patterns can threaten food production, disrupt transportation systems and degrade food safety. Furthermore, the world's poor and those living in tropical regions are particularly vulnerable. [UCAR/NCAR AtmosNews]
Power grid across Upper Midwest appears vulnerable to geomagnetic storms -- In a report prepared by scientists from the US Geological Survey (USGS) and other governmental agencies, a strong to severe geomagnetic storm could trigger surges in electrical currents that are 100 times more powerful across sections of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin than elsewhere across the nation. These surges in electric currents could disrupt and damage the power grid across a large area. [Weather.com] and [USGS News]
Impacts of hurricane-generated storm surge identified -- The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) has produced an informational webpage entitled "The Empowered Storm Surge" that investigates the vulnerability of the nation's coastal areas to storm surges that are generated by tropical cyclones. A map is provided that shows the locations of the 13 airports across the nation that are vulnerable to storm surge because of their low elevations. [National Environmental Education Foundation]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Concept of the Week: Keeping your cool!

In order to survive, humans need to maintain a nearly constant internal core temperature that is within several degrees of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Your internal temperature depends upon an energy balance involving the gain and loss of energy from radiation (incoming solar versus incoming and outgoing infrared radiation), sensible heat transfer (conduction and convection), latent heat of evaporation (respiration and perspiration) and the body's metabolic rate. This heat transfer depends upon the differences between skin temperature and the ambient air temperature of the surroundings. In addition, wind and atmospheric humidity can affect the rate of sensible and latent heat transfer. Problems arise when either too much or too little heat flows to or from the body, yielding hypothermia and hyperthermia (heat stress) conditions, respectively.

When the air temperature increases, heat flow from the body is often reduced. Heat flow can be increased to maintain stable temperatures involuntarily by thermoregulatory processes such as increased perspiration (sweating) and dilation of the blood vessels. Humans can also act to prevent hyperthermia by selecting lightweight and light colored clothes, as well as seeking of shade and well ventilated locations. Unfortunately, high atmospheric humidity that often accompanies high summer temperatures also reduces body heat loss since evaporative cooling by perspiration is suppressed. During the summer, the National Weather Service alerts the public of potentially dangerous combinations of high air temperature and atmospheric humidity levels by calculating the Heat Index.

Statistics kept by the National Weather Service reveals that heat (along with high humidity) is responsible for the greatest number of weather-related deaths across the nation during the 10-year period (2001-2010), with 115 fatalities occurring per year. By comparison, 116 fatalities per annum are caused by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms), 56 deaths per year are associated from tornadoes and 25 deaths annually caused by the cold (low temperatures). (Note: The large number of fatalities associated with the hurricanes of 2005, which totaled 1016 deaths in the US due primarily to Hurricane Katrina, has inflated the annual averages associated with tropical cyclones.) Furthermore, concern has been raised that during this century, more frequent and more severe heat waves due to global climate change could become more common, leading to a greater risk of hyperthermia and, ultimately, to higher morbidity rates.

Concept of the Week: Questions

(Each week you will be asked to respond to two questions relating to that week's Concept of the Week topic. Place your responses on the Chapter Progress Response Form provided in the Study Guide.)

The heat index is a function of air temperature and [(atmospheric humidity),(wind speed),(sunshine levels)].
The annual number of fatalities across the nation in the last ten years due to heat stress is approximately [(15),(60),(120)].

Historical Events:

26 September 1963...San Diego, CA reached an all-time record high of 111 degrees. Los Angeles hit 109 degrees. (David Ludlum)
27 September 1816...A black frost over most of New England kills unripened corn in the north resulting in a year of famine. (David Ludlum)
27-28 September 1953...The strongest wind gust ever recorded during a hurricane was 175 mph at Chetumal, Mexico. (The Weather Doctor)
28 September 1893...Albuquerque, NM was soaked with 2.25 inches of rain, enough to establish a 24-hour record for that city. (The Weather Channel)
28 September 1986...Torrential rains and floods were responsible for South Africa's worst natural disaster in Natal. As much as 35 in. of rain fell between the 25^th and 29^th to the northeast of Empangen, resulting in 317 deaths and 163 people missing. Topsoil from some farms was completely washed away leaving only bedrock. (Accord Weather Calendar)
30 September 1992...Fairbanks, AK averaged a frigid 31.7 degrees for the month, 13.2 Fahrenheit degrees below normal and a record. Beginning on the 9^th, a record low was set for every day of the month. The temperature plunged to 3 degrees on the 30^th, the lowest ever for September. Snowfall for the month totaled 24.4 inches, more than three times the previous record. The snows never melted. Plant foliage still green, was frozen into place and week long power outages occurred as whole trees bent over onto power lines in the heavy wet snow. (Intellicast)
1 October 2006...Wichita, KS recorded its hottest October day ever on the 1st with a 97-degree high temperature. (The Weather Doctor)
2 October 1858...The only tropical cyclone known to produce hurricane-force (estimated) winds on the California coast hit near San Diego, CA. Damage to property is considerable. (The Weather Doctor)
2 October 1980...The temperature at Blue Canyon, CA soared to 88 degrees, an October record for that location. (The Weather Channel)

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