24-28 January 2011

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

• December drought report -- The National Climate Data Center has posted its December 2010 drought report online. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately six percent of the coterminous United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of December, while 23 percent of the area had severely to extremely wet conditions.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

• Animation of six years of global aerosol monitoring -- An animation of monthly global maps of the relative sizes of aerosols collected from January 2005 through November 2010 has been produced by the Earth Observatory mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The monthly maps, obtained from data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, shows the global distribution of aerosols, expressed as relative percentage of small particles. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• A 102-month animation of sea surface temperatures produced --
The Earth Observatory mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center recently assembled a sequence of global maps of sea surface temperature beginning in June 2002 and running through November 2010 that were obtained from data collected by the by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E) onboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The temperature data are displayed in terms of temperature anomalies (arithmetic differences between observed and long-term average temperatures). Long term anomalies in the sea surface temperatures such as El Niño and La Niña events can be discerned. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• New Greenland ice sheet melt record set --
A researcher at the City College of New York and colleagues have found that new records for the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet were set in 2010. After analyzing surface temperature anomalies (differences between observed and average) over the Greenland ice, along with estimates of surface melting from satellite and ground based data, they said the "exceptional" melt season stretched nearly 50 days longer than average. [City College of New York]
• Mission to study important climate components readied for launch --
Engineers at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base are preparing the Glory satellite for next month's launch. Glory is NASA’s next Earth-observing mission and will contains two instruments designed to the airborne particulate matter (aerosols) in the atmosphere and the intensity of the incident sunlight (total solar irradiance) outside the Earth's atmosphere, both key components of the planetary climate system. [NASA Glory 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

• Global warming intensified by shrinking snow and ice cover -- After analyzing approximately three decades of snow and ice cover across the Northern Hemisphere from satellite data, scientists at the University of Michigan, Oregon State University and the US Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory claim that the observed decreases in the snow and ice cover appear to have exacerbated global warming at rates greater than what models have predicted. [University of Michigan News Service]
• Recent European climate influenced by humans, volcanoes and the Sun --
An international team of researchers from the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and Switzerland discovered that seasonal temperatures in Europe have been affected over the past 500 years by natural factors, including volcanic eruptions and solar activity, and by human activities through the emission of greenhouse gases. These changes were most evident in the winter season. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

• Possible link found between arctic mercury cycling and ice cover -- Scientists from Alaska, Canada and France working with National Institute of Standards and Technology colleagues have suggested that mercury cycling in the flora and fauna of the Arctic may be linked to the amount of ice cover present. These researchers used sophisticated analysis of mercury isotopes in seabird eggs to track trends in pollutants in northern marine environments. [National Institute of Standards and Technology]
• Some plants moved downhill in warming world --
Scientists at the University of California, Davis claim that their research into the changes in the distribution of vegetation in California between 1930 and 2000 refutes the previous notation that plant species will move uphill to higher elevations in response to higher air temperatures. They found that over the seven decades, many California plant species moved downhill as temperatures rose and precipitation, another important factor, increased. [University of California, Davis]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

• New seasonal climate outlooks for late winter-early spring -- Late last week, forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) released their seasonal climate outlooks for the three months of February, March and April 2011, which covers the last month of meteorological winter (February) and the first two months of meteorological spring (March and April). The forecasters foresee a greater than average chance of above average temperatures across the Southwest extending from southern Arizona to the lower Mississippi Valley. On the other hand, they anticipate a better than average chance of below average temperatures from the Pacific Northwest eastward across the northern tier of states to the western Great Lakes, as well as south of along the West Coast to California. Elsewhere, they indicate nearly equal chances of below and above average temperatures for this three-month span. They also foresee that the southern tier of states from southern California eastward to Florida would have a good chance of having below average conditions, while the eastern Great Lakes and the northern high Plains and northern Rockies stand a better than average chance of experiencing a wet three-month period. [NOAA CPC]
  At the same time, CPC also released its US Seasonal Drought Outlook that will run through April 2011. This outlook indicates the current drought conditions across the southern Plains and the Southeast should either persist or become more intense through mid to late spring. Some improvement in the drought conditions were anticipated across sections of the Midwest and the Mid-South, including the lower Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. This outlook is based upon the forecast of a continuation of the current La Niña event, an anomalous atmospheric and oceanic circulation regime that usually recognized by colder than normal waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. In strong La Niña events, storms and their associated precipitation typically remain across the northern tier of states, leaving the South drier than normal. [NOAA News]

CLIMATE MODELING

• Simulations show California could be inundated by heavy precipitation event -- Researchers at the US Geological Survey have developed a computer simulation of a possible winter storm sequence that could bring as much as ten feet of rain to California, resulting in extensive flooding. Dubbed the "ARkStorm Scenario," prehistoric geologic California flood history was combined with modern flood mapping and climate-change projections to produce a hypothetical, but plausible, scenario designed to help prepare emergency response officials. [USGS Newsroom]
• Cooler tropics could be needed through geoengineering --
Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) recently simulated the effects that two geoengineering proposals would have upon global climate on the Center's Community Climate System Model. These proposals include injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere and placing large reflectors between Sun and Earth. However, the researchers caution that cooling the tropics below current levels may be required to offset the rapid warming of the polar regions, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. [UCAR Staff Notes]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

• Deforestation dwarfs war and plague for impacting global carbon cycle -- Researchers that the Carnegie Institution for Science claim that the long term trend for increased deforestation around the world appears to present a greater impact on the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere and the global climate than the effects of historical wars and plagues. [Carnegie Institution for Science]
• 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.

REPORT FROM THE FIELD --Dr. Steve LaDochy, a professor at California State University, Los Angeles and a DataStreme LIT Leader reported on the recent unseasonably warm weather in southern California. He said that this warm January weather followed a wet and cold December. He continued to say that he held the first DataStreme LIT meeting on the beach at San Pedro, where they could look at the snow on the nearby mountains, while at the same time, kayakers paddled by in near 80-degree Fahrenheit sunshine. Steve also noted that several stations in the Los Angeles basin had temperatures on the Martin Luther King holiday that reached 90 degrees, the highest in the nation.

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

1. The first Climate Information link, "NOAA Climate Services", shows the Global Climate Dashboard where several graphs display Earth's temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide level, sea level change, etc. with a time slider than can be set to display from [(1800)(1880)(1940)] to 2010.
2. Click the "U.S. Global Change Impacts Report" link in the Societal Interactions and Climate Policy section. 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 can be categorized by [(only regional)(only sectoral)(both regional and sectoral)] climate information.

Historical Events:

• 24 January 1857...The coldest weather in pre-U.S. Weather Bureau history occurred with temperatures of 50 degrees below zero reported in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The temperature was 30 degrees below zero in Boston, MA and 11 degrees below zero on Nantucket Island. (Intellicast)
• 24 January 1916...The temperature at Browning, MT plunged 100 Fahrenheit degrees in just 24 hours, from 44 degrees above zero to 56 degrees below zero. It was a record 24-hour temperature drop for the U.S. (Weather Channel) (National Severe Storms Forecast Center)
• 24 January 1922...The all-time record low temperature for the state of Wisconsin was set at Danbury when the temperature dipped to 54 degrees below zero. (Intellicast) (This record has been broken by one degree in February, 1996)
• 24 January 1956...Thirty-eight inches of rain deluged the Kilauea Sugar Plantation of Hawaii in 24 hours, including twelve inches in just one hour. The 38.00 inches remains the Aloha State's 24-hour maximum precipitation record. (David Ludlum)
• 25 January 1965...Alta, UT was in the midst of a storm that left the town buried under 105 inches of snow establishing a record for the state. (David Ludlum)
• 26 January 1884...The coldest day on Canada's Prince Edward Island occurred when the temperature at Kilmahumaig, PEI fell to 35 degrees below zero. (The Weather Doctor)
• 27 January 1940...Florida had a 3-day long freeze with the lowest temperatures ever in January. Mason, FL dropped to 8 degrees. Eleven million boxes of citrus were damaged, resulting in a 10 million-dollar loss. Further north, Georgia's record low temperature of 17 degrees below zero was set near Calhoun. (Intellicast)
• 27 January 1994...A frigid arctic air was in place over New England and New York as a massive 1052-millibar (31.06 inches of mercury) high pressure provided ideal radiational cooling. Crown Point, NY dipped to 48 degrees below zero and Shoreham, VT shivered with 46 degrees below zero, Burlington, VT broke its old record daily low by 9 degrees with a reading of 29 degrees below zero and Caribou, ME set a record low for the third day in a row with a temperature of 23 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 28 January 1925...The temperature at Pittsburg, NH fell to 46 degrees below zero, establishing a new record low temperature for the state. (Intellicast) In January 1934, this record was broken with a reading of 47 degrees below zero. (NCDC)
• 28 January 1963...The low temperature of 34 degrees below zero at Cynthiana, KY equaled the state record established just four days earlier at Bonnieville. (The Weather Channel) This all-time state record for Kentucky has since been eclipsed by a 37 degree zero reading in January 1994. (NCDC)
• 28 January 1988...Barometric pressure readings of 30.55 inches at Miami FL, 30.66 inches at Tampa, FL, and 30.72 inches at Apalachicola, FL were all-time record high readings for those locations. (National Weather Summary)
• 28 January 1989...Nome, AK reported an all-time record low reading of 54 degrees below zero. (National Weather Summary)
• 29 January 1934...The temperature at the Observatory on top of Mt. Washington, NH (the highest point in New England) fell to 47 degrees below zero, establishing a new all-time record low temperature for the state. (NCDC)
• 30 January 1966...Alabama's record low temperature of 27 degrees below zero was set at New Market. Mississippi's record low temperature of 19 degrees below zero was set near Corinth. North Carolina's record low temperature of 29 degrees below zero was set at Mount Mitchell. (Intellicast) The record for the Tarheel State has been broken with a reading of 34 degrees below zero in January 1985. (NCDC)

Return to DataStreme Earth Climate Systems website

Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2011, The American Meteorological Society.