WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

30 January-3 February 2012

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• Climatology of Super Bowls updated -- Next Sunday (5 February 2012) is "Super Sunday" when the New York Giants play the New England Patriots in the National Football League's Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN. The service climatologist for the Southeast Regional Climate Center has provided a listing of the Super Bowl Weather & Climate 1967-2011. This annotated list contains the climatology includes the daily maximum and minimum temperatures, the 24-hour precipitation and the 24-hour snowfall along with comments on the weather observed in the host city on "Super Sunday" for each of the previous 45 Super Bowl games. Note: This document is a pdf file that requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (see below). The climatology for the Indianapolis metropolitan area for this upcoming week leading to and including Super Sunday is also available.
  During the last 45 years the Super Bowl has been played in 13 different metropolitan areas. After years of restricting the selected site to relatively warm cities or at domed stadiums, NFL officials have been considering scheduling future Super Bowls in more northern cities, including those at outdoor venues. USA Today
• Groundhog Day and climatology -- This coming Thursday (2 February 2012) is Groundhog Day, celebrated by many communities around the nation with much fanfare. According to legend, if the groundhog emerged from its burrow after hibernation on this day and saw its shadow, it would return to hibernation, thereby indicating six more weeks of wintry weather. Most people assume that a converse holds true - if no shadow were seen, an early spring should be expected. According to a Groundhog Day report prepared by the National Climatic Data Center, no convincing statistical evidence appears to support this belief of the prognostic capabilities of the groundhog. The only point that can be considered to have any meteorological significance is that cloud free weather conditions would be responsible for allowing a woodchuck or human to cast a shadow. Such cloud-free weather conditions in early February typically are associated with a cold mass of air that would usually send all but the hardiest resident back into a nice warm shelter.
  This legend also coincides with an ancient late winter festival, since next Wednesday is the customary halfway point of the astronomical winter season (the point is closer to Saturday, 4 February 2012). To the ancients, this date was significant because it was one of the four Cross Quarter Days, marking an important astronomical milestone. The day is located essentially at the point half way between the winter solstice, marking the occurrence of the shortest length of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere (22 December 2012) and the spring equinox (20 March 2012), when equal lengths of daylight and darkness occur once again. So regardless of what your local groundhog "predicts" the beginning of astronomical spring is still six weeks away.
• Newest satellite renamed for pioneer satellite meteorologist -- During the last week, NASA renamed its NASA/NOAA NPP (National Polar-orbiting Partnership) satellite, the newest Earth-observing satellite launched last October, for the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is widely recognized as "the father of satellite meteorology." [NASA Newsroom]
  
NASA recently released a high-resolution visible "Blue Marble" image of Earth obtained in early January from the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite onboard the Suomi NPP satellite. [USA Today]
• Research scientist earns international honor for climate change research -- A senior research scientist with the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ, Isaac Held, PhD, will receive the internationally prestigious BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his studies on atmospheric water vapor that have contributed to improved understanding of atmospheric circulation systems and climate change. BBVA is an international financial services group based in Spain. [NOAA News]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

• New national plant hardiness map released -- Recently, the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service released its new USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map for the United States that is based upon 30 years of data running between 1976-2005. This new GIS (Geographic Information System)-based map map, which considers average annual extreme minimum temperature for the 30-year interval, is designed for use on the Internet by gardeners as a guide to planting and replaces a map produced in 1990 that was limited to a single printed national display of average minimum temperatures for the 1974-1986 period arranged in latitudinal belts. The new maps show that the hardiness zones, which are based upon 10 Fahrenheit degree increments, have tended to migrate northward in response to higher temperatures during the last several decades. [USA Today] [Editor's note: The Arbor Day Foundation has also produced its own map in 2006 based upon the 1991 through 2005 data. EJH]
• Annual drought report -- The National Climate Data Center has posted its 2011 annual drought report online. This report describes how the areas experiencing drought and wet conditions changed throughout the calendar year. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately 18 percent of the area of the United States experienced moderate to severe drought conditions at the start of January 2011. By the end of December 2011, the size of the moderate to severe drought had reached approximately 25 percent of the nation's area.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

• Case of Earth's "Missing Energy" is solved -- A researcher from NASA's Langley Research Center and an international team of atmospheric scientists and oceanographers have resolved the mystery of "missing energy" in the Earth's system related to inconsistencies between satellite observations of planetary energy budget and measurement of ocean heating. The new study used data collected between 2001 and 2010 from NASA Langley's orbiting Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System Experiment (CERES) instruments that measure changes in the net radiation balance at the top of Earth's atmosphere and estimates of the heat content of the global ocean from three independent ocean-sensor sources. Their analysis found that the satellite and ocean measurements are in broad agreement when observational uncertainties are considered. [ NASA Langley Research]
• Studying the Alaskan permafrost from the air -- A pioneering airborne electromagnetic survey conducted by the US Geological Survey of the ground surface of east central Alaska has yielded images showing the presence or absence of permafrost across the Yukon Flats near Fort Yukon. These images obtained from an aircraft showed the permafrost to depths of nearly 328 feet and provide a detailed picture of the state of the permafrost in the boundary region between continuous and discontinuous permafrost. [USGS Newsroom]
• 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

• Human impact on ocean acidity studied -- An international team of climate modelers, marine conservationists, ocean chemists, biologists and ecologists led by scientists from the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa have created a simulation of climate and ocean conditions extending over the last 21,000 years, to the Last Glacial Maximum. They studied the ocean acidification in terms of changes in the saturation level of aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate). The researchers found that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions from human activity during the last two centuries have raised ocean acidity far beyond the range of natural variations. An animation showing the changes in aragonite surface saturation level in the global ocean basins from 1800 to 2100 was generated and is available for viewing. [EurekAlert!]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

• Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues to early life on Earth -- A marine expert at Texas A&M University at Galveston claims that deposits of bacterial microbes discovered in some underwater caves in the Bahamas may provide clues as to how marine life formed on Earth millions of years ago. [EurekAlert!]
• Determining what happened prior to "Snowball Earth" -- Scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science claim that their study of carbonate deposits prior to the Marinoan glaciation that occurred approximately 500 million years ago producing the so-called "Snowball Earth" indicate large changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates were unrelated to worldwide glacial events. [Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

• Evaluating geoengineering and global food supply -- A research team from the Carnegie Institution for Science and Stanford University conducted numerical climate simulations to examine the potential effects that geoengineering would have upon climate and global food supply. One of the geoengineering proposals considered would involve dispersing small particles across the stratosphere to produce a sunscreen to lower global temperatures. The team found that sunshade geoengineering leads to increased crop yields in most regions, but some areas would be harmed by the geoengineering. [Carnegie Institution for Science]
  In a similar study, University of Washington researchers claim that injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere to serve as a sunscreen would achieve only a portion of the desired effect, but could also cause some serious unintended consequences. [University of Washington]
• 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.

A request: If you have some ocean-related experience that you would like to share with other DataStreme Earth's Climate System participants, please send them to the email address appearing at the bottom of this document for possible inclusion in a News file. Thank you. EJH

Concept of the Week: Feedback in Earth's Climate System

Consider examples of positive and negative feedback. A warming trend in climate is likely to accelerate the rate of melting of snow and ice, producing more bare ground that absorbs more solar radiation, further raising the air temperature. A cooling trend prolongs snow and ice cover in spring and summer so that less solar radiation is absorbed, more reflected to space, bringing about additional cooling. In both cases, feedback is positive because the initial change in temperature is amplified.

Consider an example of negative feedback. While feedbacks among temperature, cloud cover, and radiation are not well understood and depend upon circumstances (e.g., type and height of clouds), they could be either positive or negative. It is thought that a warming trend in climate should increase the rate of evaporation of water from Earth's surface and thereby increase low cloud cover. A thicker and more extensive low-cloud cover reflects more solar radiation to space thereby inhibiting a further rise in surface temperature. Hence, this negative feedback would dampen the initial temperature change.

Understanding feedback in the climate system is essential for modeling and predicting climate change. If some agent or mechanism alters the climate, then feedback may either amplify (positive feedback) or dampen (negative feedback) the change in climate. As demonstrated later in this course, many agents and mechanisms can bring about climate change (e.g., variations in solar energy output, regular fluctuations in Earth-Sun geometry). While these climate forcing agents and mechanisms drive climatic change, processes within the planetary climate system involving feedbacks significantly impact the magnitude of climate change.

Overall, which type of feedback prevails in Earth's climate system, positive or negative? A system in which positive feedback prevails is unstable. For Earth, this would move the climate regime toward an extreme characterized by excessive cold that would encase the planet in snow and ice ("snowball" or "ice ball" Earth) or toward the other extreme resulting in much higher temperatures--the product of a runaway greenhouse effect. Although Earth's climate has varied considerably over the billions of years that constitute geologic time, it appears likely that Earth's climate system has been nearly stable with negative feedbacks generally compensating for positive feedbacks.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Place your responses on the Chapter Progress Response Form provided in the Study Guide.

1. The magnitude of a climate change [(largely depends upon)(is independent of)] positive and negative feedback phenomena operating in Earth's climate system.
2. Through much of Earth history, it appears that [(positive feedbacks)(negative feedbacks)(a general balance between positive and negative feedbacks)] have (has) prevailed.

Historical Events:

• 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)
• 31 January 1911...Tamarack, CA was without snow the first eight days of the month, but by the end of January had been buried under 390 inches of snow, a record monthly snowfall total for the U.S. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 January 1920...The highest barometric pressure observed in the contiguous forty-eight states was recorded at Northfield, VT with a reading of 31.14 inches of mercury (1054.5 millibars). (The Weather Doctor)
• 31 January 1963...The Mt. Rose Highway Station near Reno, NV reported 7.13 inches of precipitation, which set a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for Nevada. (NCDC)
• 31 January 1989...The barometer rose to 31.85 inches of mercury (1079.7 millibars) at Northway, AK, establishing the all time highest reading for the North American continent. (The Weather Doctor)
• 31 January 1994...Caribou, ME recorded its coldest month ever. The average temperature for the month was a frigid 0.7 degrees below zero. The old record was 1.3 degrees set in January 1957. (Intellicast)
• 1 February 1985...The temperature at Gavial, NM dropped to a state record low of 50 degrees below zero. The state record low temperature in Colorado of 60 degrees below zero was tied at Maybell. A station at Peter's Sink, UT reported a temperature of 69 degrees below zero, which set the all-time state record. (NCDC)
• 2 February 1951...The record low temperature for the state of Indiana was set at Greensburg when the mercury fell to 35 degrees below zero; this record was broken in January, 1994. (Intellicast)
• 2 February 1952...The only tropical storm of record to hit the U.S. in February moved out of the Gulf of Mexico and a cross southern Florida. It produced 60-mph winds, and two to four inches of rain. (2nd-3rd) (The Weather Channel)
• 2 February 1996...Extremely cold air covered the north-central U.S. Tower, MN dropped to 60 degrees below zero to set a new state low temperature record. International Falls, MN and Glasgow, MT both set records for the month of February with 45 and 38 below zero, respectively. Rochester, MN dipped to 34 below zero for its lowest temperature in 45 years. Green Bay, WI only reached 16 degrees below zero for the high temperature for the day, which is its lowest high temperature on record in February. Meanwhile, farther to the east, heavy snow fell across the mid-Atlantic region. Eighteen inches of snow was recorded at Rehoboth Beach, DE and 17 inches fell at Solomons, MD. Charleston, WV recorded 6.8 inches of snow for the day to bring its seasonal snowfall to 80.7 inches, the city's snowiest winter ever -- and still two months of winter to go! (Intellicast)
• 3 February 1917...Downtown Miami, FL reported an all-time record low of 27 degrees. Miami weather records date to 1911. (David Ludlum)
• 3 February 1947...The temperature at Tanacross, AK plunged to a record 75 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum) At Snag, Yukon Territory, the temperature fell to 81 degrees below zero, North America's lowest recorded official temperature (The Weather Doctor)
• 3 February 1996...Extremely cold weather persisted. Des Moines, IA dipped to 26 degrees below zero to tie its February low and broke its record for most consecutive hours below zero, which ended up being 132 hours. Milwaukee, WI also tied its record for lowest February temperature with 26 degrees below zero. The temperature at Tower, MN fell to 60 degrees below zero to set a new all-time state minimum temperature record for the Gopher State. The state record low was also tied in Iowa with Elkader reporting a frigid 47 below zero. Elizabeth, IL recorded 35 degrees below to tie the state lowest temperature record; this record has since been broken in January 1999. (Intellicast) (NCDC)
• 3 February 1997...Centralia, WA set the state record for consecutive days of measurable precipitation at 55 between 10 November 1996 and 3 February 1997. (The Weather Doctor)
• 4 February 1996...Frigid temperatures continued over the northern US and spread southward to the Gulf Coast. A cooperative observer near Couderay, WI reported a temperature of 55 degrees below zero, which set a new record low for the Badger State. This reading is also the lowest temperature ever recorded east of the Mississippi River. Amasa, MI checked in with 51 degrees below zero, which tied the record low for Michigan. Tulsa, OK had a morning low of 11 degrees below zero for its lowest temperature in 66 years. Muskegon, MI recorded an all-time low of 19 degrees below zero. La Crosse, WI completed it longest stretch of subzero temperatures ever (144 hours). The center of the frigid arctic high-pressure system moved over Louisiana, setting an all-time record high barometric pressure of 30.82 inches (1043.6 millibars) at Baton Rouge. (Intellicast)
• 5 February 1887...San Francisco, CA experienced its greatest snowstorm of record. Nearly four (3.7) inches were reported in downtown San Francisco, and the western hills of the city received seven inches. Excited crowds went on a snowball-throwing rampage. (David Ludlum)
• 5 February 1996...The "great arctic outbreak of '96" began to wind down, but not before one more frigid morning. Greene, RI reported a state record low temperature of 25 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 6 February 1933...The temperature at Oimekon, Russia fell to 90 degrees (Fahrenheit), tying the previous lowest recorded temperature in Asia set in 1892. (The Weather Doctor)
• 6 February 1933...The highest reliably observed ocean wave was seen by crew of the US Navy oiler, USS Ramapo, in the North Pacific during the night on its way from Manila to San Diego. The wave was estimated (by triangulation) to have a height of 112 feet. Average winds at the time were 78 mph. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 6 February 1978...A massive nor'easter buried the cities of the northeastern U.S. The Boston, MA area received 25 to 30 inches in "The Great New England Blizzard of '78" By the time the storm ended late on the 7th, Boston had 27.1 inches of new snow to set an all-time single storm snowfall record. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2012, The American Meteorological Society.