WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

SPRING BREAK WEEK: 7-11 March 2016

This is Break Week for the Spring 2016 offering of the DataStreme Earth Climate Studies course. This Weekly Climate News contains new information items and historical data, but the Concept of the Week is repeated from Week 6.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Astronaut's photos of Earth & Moon serve as a great teaching tool -- The Educational Manager of the ISS (International Space Station) National Lab CASIS (Center for the Advancement of Science in Space), Dan Barstow, has announced that over 1000 photographs that astronaut Scott Kelly had taken while onboard the ISS are freely available on the web as "Scott Kelly's Amazing Earth" at WindowsOnEarth.org . These photos represent "a great resource for Earth and space science education - and for exploring climate change." A global competition to pick favorites will commence this week. Kelly returned to Earth last week after spending nearly one year onboard ISS. [WindowsOnEarth.org]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2016 Campaign is underway -- The third in the series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2016 will continue through 10 March. 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 (Orion in the Northern Hemisphere and Crux 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 30 March-8 April 2016. [GLOBE at Night]
Time change -- Daylight Saving Time will go into effect next Sunday morning (13 March 2016) for essentially the entire nation -- the exceptions include Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and about 18 counties in Indiana. These changes have been mandated by the U.S. Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which extended Daylight Saving Time across the nation, with the start on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November (6 November 2016). In other words, following the old adage of "spring ahead, fall behind", you will need to turn your clocks ahead by one hour to conform with the local time observance. Most of Canada also observes Daylight Saving Time changes at the same time [National Research Council Canada].
What does this time change mean to you (other than later sunsets)? Contrary to a popular belief that has surfaced at times, the change from Standard to Daylight Saving Time does not add an extra hour of daylight to the day nor does it affect weather patterns. While the weather will not change because of the time change, the times when you will be able to obtain weather charts will now be one hour later. The reason is that the National Weather Service operates on "Z time" (variously called Greenwich Mean Time or Universal Coordinated Time) which does not observe Daylight Saving Time, and the charts are still produced and transmitted at the same Z time.
Viewing atmospheric circulation in three-dimensions -- Read this week's Supplemental Information.. In Greater Depth for information concerning the average circulation in the lower and upper troposphere.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Quantifying winter severity across the nation -- The former director of the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) and a weather forecaster at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Omaha, NE have developed the Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index (AWSSI), which represents an objective index that uses commonly available weather data to quantify and describe the relative severity of the winter season. At this time AWSSI is calculated and posted on the MRCC AWSSI web page for approximate 100 stations around the 48 contiguous United States and Alaska. [MRCC The Climate Observer]
Airborne Snow and Soil Moisture Survey program monitors state of nation's snowpack -- The National Weather Service's National Operational Hydrological Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) is currently conducting its operational Airborne Gamma Radiation Snow Survey Program for the 2015-2016 that makes airborne Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) and soil moisture measurements. These data are updated in the National Snow Analysis posted on the NOHRSC website. [NOAA Weather-Ready-Nation News]
Surf's up in Hawaii due to huge waves -- During the last two weeks, the impromptu big-wave surf competition known locally as "the Eddie" was held along Oahu's North Shore in Hawaii because of the monster breaking waves that reached heights to 60 feet along the coasts of Kauai and Oahu. On 22 February, the instrumented buoy moored offshore of Oahu's Waimea Bay recorded a record-breaking wave height. The waves were generated by ocean swell produced from two strong winter storms with hurricane-force winds that traversed the North Pacific at least 1000 miles to the north of Hawaii. The current strong El Niño event may have contributed to the strength and southern track of these Pacific storms and the strong winds. The Eddie has taken place only nine times since the inaugural competition in winter of 1985/86. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
A quick view of the faint solar atmosphere during the upcoming total solar eclipse -- Scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center plan on taking 59 several-second photographic exposures of the outer atmosphere of the Sun from Indonesia using a special polarization camera in just over three minutes during the upcoming total solar eclipse. The faint sections of the Sun's atmosphere, including the inner solar corona, should become visible when the Moon obscures the Sun for several minutes this week. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
The total solar eclipse should be visible along a path extending from the eastern Indian Ocean across the Indonesia (including Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi) and then eastward across the Pacific Ocean to a point to the north of the Hawaiian Islands. A partial solar eclipse would be seen by people in northern and western Australia, Oceania, southeastern and eastern Asia (the Indochina Peninsula, eastern China and Japan), Hawaii and southwestern Alaska. The eclipse will begin at 2319Z on 8 March 2016, reaching a maximum at 0159Z on 9 March 2016. Totality should last for slightly more than four minutes. The NASA Eclipse Web Site has more particulars and maps of this solar eclipse.
Satellite detects movement of Antarctic iceberg -- A pair of images obtained from data collected by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensor onboard NASA's Aqua satellite documents the movement of Iceberg B-09B that had blocked a bay in East Antarctica for more than five years. One of the MODIS images was taken in February 2013, while the other image was from several weeks ago. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Shifting winds during current El Niño monitored from space -- Scientists have been monitoring near surface wind data (both speed and direction) over the Pacific Ocean collected by NASA's RapidScat scatterometer instrument onboard the International Space Station (ISS) during the last year, which is coincidental with the development of a major El Niño event that appears to be peaking. Anomalous winds from the west have intensified during the last year over the equatorial western Pacific with a weakening over the eastern waters, which is typical of an El Niño event. Other changes in winds across the northern sections of the basin can be attributed to the teleconnections associated with this event. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CLIMATE FORCING

Last year's blowout from California well was largest US methane release on record -- Researchers from NOAA, the University of California, Davis and partners recently reported that during the peak of the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility leak, enough methane gas escaped into the air every day to fill a balloon the size of the Rose Bowl. Total emissions of this greenhouse gas during the 112-day event that began in late October 2015 were equal to one-quarter of the annual methane pollution from all other sources in the Los Angeles Basin combined. Consequently, the disaster will substantially impact California's ability to meet state greenhouse gas emission targets for the year. [NOAA News]
Atmospheric river storms could reduce Sierra snowpack -- Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory recently reported that storms associated with the atmospheric river (AR) from off the subtropical Pacific appear to be more than twice as likely to reduce the snowpack in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains as other types of winter storms that cause rain to fall on the snowpack. They based their conclusions on analysis of NASA satellite and ground-based data from 1998 through 2014. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Canadian national seasonal outlook issued -- Forecasters with Environment Canada issued their outlooks for temperature and precipitation across Canada for meteorological spring, of the three months of March through May 2016. Their temperature outlook indicates that nearly all of Canada, with the exception of sections of Labrador could experience above normal (1981-2010) temperatures for these three months. A small area of in Atlantic Canada could see near average spring temperatures.
The Canadian precipitation outlook for Spring 2015 indicates that many areas scattered across western, northern and eastern Canada could experience above near average precipitation. A large section of Ontario could have below average precipitation. Elsewhere, near average spring precipitation should occur.
[Note for comparisons and continuity with the three-month seasonal outlooks of temperature and precipitation generated for the continental United States and Alaska by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, one would need to use Environment Canada's probabilistic forecasts for temperature and precipitation.]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Recent eastern Mediterranean drought is worst in last nine centuries -- Scientists who reconstructed the Mediterranean's long-term drought history from tree rings report that the recent long-lived drought in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region appears to be the worst of the past 900 years. The drought, which began in the Mediterranean Levant region consists of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey. In addition, the team found that when the northern part of the Mediterranean, consisting of Greece, Italy, and the coasts of France and Spain, were dry when eastern North Africa was wet, and vice versa. These east-west and north-south relationships helped the team understand what ocean and atmospheric conditions lead to dry or wet periods, with the North Atlantic Oscillation and the East Atlantic Pattern appearing to influence drought conditions across the Mediterranean. A map of the region constructed from data collected from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites shows a decrease in water storage in the soil across northern sections of the Mediterranean basin during the last several years. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

This Concept of the Week is repeated from Week 6.

Concept of the Week: Tropospheric westerly winds, north and south

The theoretical existence of upper tropospheric jet stream winds were not confirmed until being encountered by World War II bomber pilots when heading west into strong headwinds at altitudes of approximately 30,000 feet (10,000 m). Wind speeds sometimes exceeded 170 mph causing their relatively slow, heavily laden aircraft to almost stand still. Subsequently, westerly jet stream winds were found to encircle the planet in midlatitudes of both hemispheres above regions of strong temperature contrasts.

The explanation for these winds involves atmospheric mass distributions and forces on a rotating planet. Air in tropical latitudes is warmed, rises and then flows poleward, both north and south. On a rotating planet, moving air is deflected by the Coriolis effect, to the right in the Northern Hemisphere (and left in the Southern). The greater the temperature differences between warm lower and cold higher latitudes, the stronger the air motions and the faster the jet streams. The vertical temperature patterns result in the highest wind speeds near the top of the troposphere.

So Northern Hemisphere air headed northward, deflected to the right ends up headed east, a "westerly wind." In the Southern Hemisphere, southward moving air, deflected left will also go east, as a westerly wind. These "rivers" of strong upper-level winds steer surface weather systems as they move generally eastward across midlatitudes. They also provide boosts for jet aircraft headed eastward with them, but need to be avoided for going west! Of course, the full story is complex as land (especially mountains) and water surfaces interact with the heating of the air and eddies form in the turbulent flows, so jet streams wander. And with them go the storms and the weather patterns that form our short-term climate.

Concept of the Week: Questions

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

The Northern Hemisphere jet stream winds would be directed such that cold air is [(to the left),(to the right),(directly ahead)] of their forward motion.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the jet stream winds to be directed generally toward the [(south), (east), (west)].

Historical Events:

7 March 1932...A severe coastal storm set barometric pressure records from Virginia to New England. Block Island, RI reported a barometric pressure reading of 955.0 millibars (28.20 inches of mercury). (David Ludlum)
7 March 1996...6.5 inches of snow fell at Boston, MA on this date to bring its seasonal total to 96.4 inches -- the city's snowiest winter in 105 years of record keeping. The old record was 96.3 inches set in the 1993-94 winter season. Now all major cities along this East Coast had broken their seasonal snowfall records in the 1995-96 winter season. (Intellicast)
7 March 2000...The temperature at Duluth, MN reached 70 degrees, which was the earliest that a 70-degree reading was reported in Duluth; the previous earliest date was 22 March 1945 when the temperature reached 72 degrees. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
7 March 1999...Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada's snowiest major city set a new record for a one-day snowfall of 45.7 inches, but prior to that date the winter's total had been a meager (for the city) 46 inches of snow. (The Weather Doctor)
8 March 1971...A snowstorm dropped 10 to 20 inches of new snow across Vermont to raise snow depths to record levels. A snow cover of 116 inches was measured on the ground on top of Mount Mansfield, the second highest snow depth ever recorded on the mountain up to the time. The town of Orange measured 88 inches on the ground for a new state low-elevation snow depth record. (Intellicast)
8 March 1992...In the first 8 days of March, Las Vegas, NV recorded 1.87 inches of rain, setting a new monthly record for rainfall in March. The previous record was 1.83 inches set in 1973. (Intellicast)
8 March 1994...A major snowstorm buried sections of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas. Ozark Beach, MO recorded 19 inches of snow, while Harrison, AR checked in with 18 inches. Tulsa, OK had 12.9 of snow, for its greatest single storm snowfall ever. (Intellicast)
8 March 1996...Elkins, WV received 2.1 inches of snow on this day to bring its seasonal snowfall to 125.8 inches -- its snowiest winter on record. (Intellicast)
9 March 1911...Aibonito, Puerto Rico had temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest temperature recorded on that island. (The Weather Doctor)
9 March 1943...The temperature at Lac Frontiere, ME fell to 40 degrees below zero, the lowest reading ever in March in New England. (Intellicast)
9 March 1956...A whopping 367 inches of snow was measured on the ground at the Rainier Paradise Ranger Station in Washington. The snow depth was a state record and the second highest total of record for the continental U.S. (The Weather Channel)
10 March 1912...The barometric pressure reached 990.9 millibars (29.26 inches) at Los Angeles, CA, and 997.7 millibars (29.46 inches) at San Diego, CA, setting all-time records for those two locations. (David Ludlum)
10 March 1922...Dodge City, KS reported an all-time record 24-hour total of 17.5 inches of snow. (The Weather Channel)
10-11 March 1972, The temperature at Chicago, IL rose from 15 degrees on the 10th to 73 degrees on the 11th. The 58-Fahrenheit degree temperature rise tied the city's largest day-to-day rise on record. The city experienced a similar jump in temperature in February 1887. (The Weather Doctor)
11 March 1911...Tamarack, CA reported 451 inches of snow on the ground, a record for the U.S. (David Ludlum)
11 March 1948...Record cold followed in the wake of a Kansas blizzard. Lows of 25 degrees below zero at Oberlin, Healy, and Quinter established a state record for the month of March. Lows of 15 degrees below zero at Dodge City, 11 degrees below zero at Concordia, and 3 degrees below zero at Wichita were records for March at these locations. The low of 3 degrees below zero at Kansas City, MO was their latest subzero reading of record. (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
11 March 2006...The record run for dry days in Phoenix, AZ finally ended at 143 at 12:07 AM MST. The last measured rain in the city fell on 18 October 2005. The last time the region had significant precipitation was 2 August when 0.59 inch (15 mm) fell. Not only did the rain break the dry spell, the 1.40-inch total was a record amount for the date: The previous consecutive dry-day mark, set in 1998-99, was 101 days. (The Weather Doctor)
12-13 March 1907...A storm produced a record 5.22 inches of rain in 24 hours at Cincinnati, OH. (The Weather Channel)
12 March 1923...The record low air pressure of 971.9 millibars (28.70 inches) for Chicago, IL was set during a storm that produced heavy snow, a thick glaze, gales, and much rain that caused $800,000 damage. (Intellicast)
13-15 March 1952...The world's 5-day rainfall record was set when a tropical cyclone produced 151.73 inches of rain at Cilos, Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The 73.62 inches that fell in a 24-hour period (15^th-16^th) set the world's 24-hour rainfall record. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
13 March 1993...The "Great Blizzard of '93" clobbered the eastern US and produced perhaps the largest swath of heavy snow ever recorded. Heavy snow was driven to the Gulf Coast with 3 inches falling at Mobile, AL and up to 5 inches reported in the Florida Panhandle, the greatest single snowfall in the state's history. Thirteen inches blanketed Birmingham, AL to set not only a new 24-hour snowfall record for any month, but also set a record for maximum snow depth, maximum snow for a single storm, and maximum snow for a single month. Tremendous snowfall amounts occurred in the Appalachians. Mount Leconte in Tennessee recorded an incredible 60 inches. Mount Mitchell in North Carolina was not far behind with 50 inches. Practically every official weather station in West Virginia set a new 24-hour record snowfall. Farther to the north, Pittsburgh, PA measured 25 inches, Albany, NY checked in with 27 inches, and Syracuse, NY was buried under 43 inches. The major population corridor from Washington, DC to Boston, MA was not spared this time as all the big cities got about a foot of snow before a changeover to rain. A rather large amount of thunderstorm activity accompanied the heavy snow. Winds to hurricane force in gusts were widespread. Boston recorded a gust to 81 mph, the highest wind gust at that location since hurricane Edna in 1954. Numerous cities in the south and mid Atlantic states recorded their lowest barometric pressure ever as the storm bottomed out at 960 millibars (28.35 inches of mercury) over Chesapeake Bay. Some 208 people were killed by the storm and total damage was estimated at $6 billion-- the costliest extratropical storm in history. (Intellicast)

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