WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

8-12 August 2011

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2012 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 27 August 2012. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

The "Dog Days" officially end on 11 August, having begun the third day in July. Superstition has it that dogs tend to become mad during that time of the year. (The Weather Channel)
A Nighttime Show -- The annual Perseid meteor shower should peak in the predawn hours of Sunday morning, but the display should continue on Sunday night and Monday morning. The Perseids, which are associated with the some bits of Comet Swift-Tuttle, are noted for being fast and bright, and often leave persistent trains. Typically, the Perseids are usually very active for several days before and after the peaks, often producing 30 to 60 meteors per hour. Unfortunately, the illumination from a waning crescent moon, which would rise after local midnight, could interfere with viewing the Perseids. If the skies are clear in your area, go to a region that has few lights and look up and to the northeast during the early morning hours.
Weather and Climatology for the Summer Olympics -- The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad, are scheduled to take place in London, England in the United Kingdom from Friday, 27 July to Sunday, 12 August 2012. The United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, the country's national weather service, has assembled a climatology of weather statistics over a 30-year span (1971-2000) for the various venues around the London metropolitan area. [UK Met Office] In addition, the UK Met Office has produced a page entitled Weather and Sport that describes how weather can have a huge impact on sports.
Five-day weather forecasts are being made available for the venues and nearby locations throughout the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
NOAA's south Asian monsoon research receives international award -- A research paper "Anthropogenic aerosols and the weakening of the South Asian Summer Monsoon" written by NOAA researchers at Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory that linked weaker south Asian summer monsoon regimes during the second half of the 20th century with human activities recently won the World Meteorological Organization's Norbert Gerbier-MUMM International Award for 2013 This award recognizes a scientific paper on the influence of meteorology on a science field. [NOAA News]
Second highest tornado in US recorded -- A registered storm-spotter with NOAA's National Weather Service submitted a photograph that he made last weekend (28 July 2012) of a tornado that he spotted on the side of Mount Evans, a 14,265-foot mountain in the Front Range region of Colorado's Rocky Mountains west of the Denver metropolitan area. Triangulation suggests that this EF-0 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale touched down at an altitude of 11,900 feet, which would make it the second-highest tornado recorded in US history, surpassed only by a tornado that was photographed at 12,000 feet in California's Sequoia National Park in July 2004. [Live Science]
Looking for a cloud-free day across the nation -- The assistant Texas state climatologist responded to a recent question concerning the possibility of a cloudless day across the entire nation. He concludes that based upon the size of the country, the answer would probably no, citing modern satellite images that would show clouds being a daily occurrence in some sections that may be well away from weather observation stations. [theeagle.com]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

High pressure over Greenland Ice Sheet promotes melting -- Weather data from the reanalysis project provided by NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division shows that a large area of high pressure was located at approximately 10,000 feet in the lower troposphere (identified in a higher than normal geopotential height fields on the 700-mb constant pressure surface) and above average temperatures at that level. The higher than average pressure and temperatures correspond to the significant melting of the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet, especially at the two-mile high summit, which is near the 700 mb-surface. [NOAA Climate Watch Magazine]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

New version of the Global Historical Climatology Network's daily database is released -- NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) recently announced that the new version of the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily (GHCN-Daily) integrated database of daily climate summaries has been released. This new version of the official NCDC database includes the addition of 116 new stations and updated data from Russian stations to the network of approximately 80,000 land surface stations in 180 countries across the globe. [NCDC News]
Updating statewide climate extremes -- NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) recently updated its statewide climate extremes tables, which represents a list of the extreme climate events for each of the nation's 50 states along with Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands extending back for the entire period of record. These events include all-time highest maximum and lowest minimum temperatures, the greatest 24-hour precipitation and snowfall and the all-time snow depth for each state or territory. The NCDC scientists also consulted the State Climate Extremes Committees (National Weather Service Offices and state climatologists) in the individual states. [NCDC News]
Nation experiencing a "tornado drought" in 2012 -- A research meteorologist with NOAA's Storm Prediction Center notes that after an above average number of tornadoes in January through mid April 2012, the number of tornadoes reported across the US had been unusually low. Since the beginning of June the accumulated number of estimated tornadoes has been the smallest number since a reliable tornado data set began in 1954. [US Severe Weather Blog]
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

Could "carbon eaters" be in the Black Sea? -- An image made from data collected in mid July 2012 by the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows a brilliant cyan pattern across the surface layer of the Black Sea. This pattern suggests microscopic coccolithophores, which are single cell phytoplankton or algae that use carbon, calcium, and oxygen to produce tiny plates of calcium carbonate (coccoliths) and effectively remove carbon from the air and sequester it as limestone. The micro-stones produced could accelerate the ocean's biological pump. [NASA Earth Observatory]
About half of greenhouse gases emitted by humans absorbed by Earth's oceans and ecosystems -- Scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and the University of Colorado recently reported that even though carbon emissions caused by human activity have increased during the last half century, natural sinks in the oceans and land ecosystems have been able to remove approximately one half of the carbon emitted by anthropogenic means into the atmosphere. These researchers analyzed 50 years of global carbon dioxide measurements. [NOAA News]
Monitoring the aerosol imports into North America -- Scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and several universities have estimated that approximately 64 million tons of particulate matter including dust and pollutants are annually carried to the North American continent by winds. They base their estimates on a three-dimensional view of the atmosphere produced using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model with data provided by instruments onboard NASA's Terra satellite and from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite. They estimate that 88 percent of the total particulate matter imported into North America is from dust carried across the North Pacific Ocean from Asia. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Hurricane season outlook is updated -- Last Friday, the hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University, including Philip Klotzbach and William Gray, issued their updated August forecast for the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season. Their "Forecast of Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Activity and Landfall Strike Probability for 2012" calls for the remainder of the season to be slightly below average due to a slowly developing El Niño event that is anticipated to be weak and to a tropical Atlantic that appears to be less favorable for tropical cyclone development than over the last two seasons. However, they have increased their June forecast slightly, calling for a total of 14 named tropical cyclones (maximum sustained surface winds exceeding 38 mph), including the four storms that have formed before the end of July. In addition, they claim that five additional hurricanes (winds greater than 73 mph) will form following Hurricane Chris in June. Furthermore, two of these six anticipated hurricanes could become major (category 3 or greater on the Saffir-Simpson Scale). They also anticipate a slightly below average probability that a major hurricane will make landfall in the continental United States and in the Caribbean. [The Tropical Storm Project]
Updated national drought outlook issued -- Forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center recently released and updated Seasonal Drought Outlook that is to run from early August through the end of October 2012. They foresee that the drought should persist across a large area of the nation, extending from the Midwest across the Plains and the central Rockies to sections of the Great Basin. They believe that sections of the Southeast and the Southwest, primarily across Arizona and New Mexico, could experience improvement in the drought conditions. Unfortunately, they call for developing drought conditions across several sections of the northern and southern Plains. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center] Note: a Seasonal Drought Outlook Discussion is included describing the forecasters' confidence.

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Recent drought in western North America appears worst in 800 years and may portend "new normal" -- A team of scientists recently reported that the chronic multi-year drought that has gripped western North America between 2000 and 2004 was the strongest in 800 years and that the drought conditions could become the "new normal" for much of the 21st century. This recent drought not only produced adverse effects on forests, crops, rivers and water tables, but also cut the carbon sequestration by nearly one half across western sections of the US, Canada and Mexico. [Oregon State University News]
A recent article was produced for the NOAA's "Climate Watch Magazine" that was based on a television interview with Jonathan Overpeck, a geosciences professor at the University of Arizona and the co-director of the university’s Institute of the Environment. He discussed the recent droughts and megadroughts across the Southwestern States along with their association with changing climate conditions. [NOAA Climate Watch Magazine]
Linking climate and fish sticks -- An article written by a staff member at the National Snow and Ice Center describes how unusually warm waters in the Bering Sea between 2001 and 2005 have provided scientists and the fishing industry a preview of the challenges they may face keeping Alaska Pollock, the fish used for popular fish-sticks, on the market in future years as the climate warms. [NOAA Climate Watch Magazine]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Mapping of future climate change in Africa is conducted -- A team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and other partner universities have created an online mapping tool as part of the Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program that can be used by the public to analyze climate and other pertinent information in order to help vulnerable populations adapt to climate change and political instability. [Texas Advanced Computing Center]
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.

Historical Events:

8 August 1878...The temperature at Denver, CO soars to an all-time record high of 105 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
8 August 1983...The temperature at Big Horn Basin, WY reached 115 degrees to establish a state record for the Cowboy State. (The Weather Channel)
9 August 1930...The temperature reached 113 degrees at Perryville, TN to establish an all-time maximum temperature record for the Volunteer State. (NCDC) (Intellicast)
9 August 1960...Vancouver (British Columbia) International Airport's hottest day on record as the mercury hit 91.4 degrees (The Weather Doctor)
9 August 2003...The Bavarian city of Roth, Germany had a temperature that hit 105 degrees, a new national record. (The Weather Doctor)
10 August 1898...The temperature at Pendleton, OR climbed all the way to 119 degrees to tie the state record set two weeks previously at Prineville. (The Weather Channel)
10 August 1936...The temperature soared to 114 degrees at Plain Dealing, LA, and reached 120 degrees at Ozark, AR, to establish record highs for those two states. (The Weather Channel)
10 August 1988... The temperature reached 102 degrees at Ely, NV breaking the all-time record there. (Intellicast)
10 August 2003...A heat wave continued across the British Isles. At Gravesend in southern England, a new national heat record was set as the mercury soared to 100.58 degrees. The heat forced rail service officials across Britain to limit train speeds to 60 mph because of fears the tracks could buckle. Londoners experience their hottest recorded day in the London's history when the temperature hit 100.22 degrees, which was the first ever time that the temperature went over 100 degrees at Heathrow Airport. (The Weather Doctor)
11 August 1914...The temperature at Northwest River, Labrador soared to an all-time Labrador record high of 107 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
11 August 1933...The unofficial shade temperature at San Luis, Mexico reached 58 degrees Celsius (136.4 degrees Fahrenheit), for share of the world record with Aziziyah, Libya. (The Weather Doctor)
11 August 1944...The temperature at Burlington, VT soared to an all-time record high of 101 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
11 August 2003...The temperature at Turin, Italy hit 107 degrees, marking the hottest day in over the 250 years that temperature readings have been recorded. (The Weather Doctor)
11 August 2004...The temperature at Reykjavík, Iceland reached 76.6 degrees, the hottest day ever recorded in the city where record have been kept since the 19th century. (The Weather Doctor)
11 August 2007...Dutch Harbor/Unalaska Airport, AK set its all-time high temperature with a reading of 81 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
12 August 1891...An 80-minute deluge, possibly related to a tropical storm system, pelted Vampo, CA with between 11.5 and 11.8 inches of rain. The observer measured, then emptied the rain gauge several times as it filled. No other U.S. storm has come close to producing this much precipitation in an 80-minute span. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
12 August 1933...The temperature at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley, CA hit 127 degrees to establish the officially recognized U.S. record for the month of August. (The Weather Channel)
12 August 1936...The temperature at Seymour, TX hit 120 degrees to establish a state record. This Lone Star State record was later tied in June 1994. (The Weather Channel)
12 August 1985...With the span of two hours, 17.32 inches of rain fell at Gajo, Gansu, China, marking a worldwide record rainfall event for such a length of time. (NWS)
12 August 2001...The temperature at Osoyoos, British Columbia: rocketed to an all-time August record high for the province of 107 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)

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