DataStreme WES Week Twelve: 29 November-3 December 2004

• Oil spills into Delaware River -- A tanker leaked 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River late Friday. While some waterfowl were killed by the spill, action by the US Coast Guard appears to have contained the oil spill on Saturday resulting in the minimal additional damage to the environment. [CNN]
• Another deadly tropical low pressure system hits the Philippines -- Within a week after Tropical Storm Muifa hit the main Philippine island of Luzon, Tropical Depression Merbok struck the island early last week with heavy rains that caused floods and landslides. At least 165 people were killed or remained missing and more than 30,000 homes were destroyed from these two tropical systems. [USA Today]
• Aussies could run out of water -- Extended spells of dry weather along with increased per capital water consumption by Australians appear to make many locations across the Australian continent susceptible to a major water crisis in the next several years. [USA Today]
• Spill keeps offshore oil project from pumping -- A spill at Terra Nova off the Newfoundland coast at the beginning of last week has kept Canada's second-largest offshore oil project from resuming pumping operations. [ENN]
• Withdrawal of Great Lakes water a concern --Proposals to divert fresh water from the Great Lakes to more arid sections of North America or to Asia have met with concern and opposition from various governmental and environmental groups in the states and Canadian provinces surrounding the Lakes. [ENN]
• Award for tsunami warning system -- The US Department of Commerce gold medal has been awarded jointly to the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and the National Data Buoy Center for their work on the development of DART (Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis), a new moored buoy system used to collect information for timely tsunami warnings. [NOAA News]
• Shrinking glaciers pose a water problem--A scientist from the Centre for Mountain Studies recently warned that the accelerated shrinking of mountain glaciers are causing major problems in the availability of fresh water for many plant and animal species, as well as millions of people. [ENN]
• Scenic California lake threatened by development -- Concern has been raised that developers are planning a subdivision near the nation's first federal scenic area, Mono Lake near the California-Nevada border, which had described by Mark Twain in his 1872 classic, Roughing It. [US Water News]
• Cost-effective tidal power envisioned--A British engineer believes that he can use existing turbine designs inside large underwater pipes to generate cost-effective tidal power. [EurekAlert!]
• Life exists in a very dry desert--Scientists from the University of Arizona report that they believe microbial life exists several inches underneath the surface of Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the world's driest climates. [EurekAlert!]
• Wetland changes could affect Florida freezes -- Scientists from Colorado State University, USGS and NASA used data from a Landsat satellite to provide a potential link between the loss of wetlands in south Florida with more severe freezes, with lower minimum temperatures and increased duration of subfreezing temperatures in some of the region's agricultural areas. [EurekAlert!]
• Cores from Arctic Ocean seafloor reveal climate history --Members of the Arctic Coring Expedition have begun analyzing sediment cores obtained from the Arctic Ocean seafloor by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. These cores should help reveal the climate history of the region for the last 55 million years. [EurekAlert!]
• 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]
• Global Water News Watch -- Other water news sources can be obtained through the SAHRA Project at the University of Arizona [SAHRA Project]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Change in the Earth System

In 1881, Henri Louis Le Chátelier (1850-1936) formulated a general law of chemistry: "If a system at equilibrium is subjected to a stress, the equilibrium will shift in an attempt to reduce the stress." This reasoning provides insight into the behavior of systems. The interaction of subsystems within the Earth system involves the transfer of mass and energy. A stress or disturbance of a subsystem will thus affect the other subsystems to varying degrees.

The final week of the course is an appropriate occasion for us to revisit and reflect on the paradigm that guided our investigation of water in the Earth system and to consider how this system will react to stresses resulting from both natural and human disturbances.

The burning of fossil fuels appears to be a major contributor to the increased amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Le Chátelier would describe this anthropogenic increase as a stress on the system. By altering the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, human activity may be modifying climate on a global scale. The Earth system and its various interdependent subsystems may respond to this disturbance by shifting to a new climate state. The interdependency of Earth's various subsystems and biogeochemical cycles implies that such a shift will have implications for the distribution of water within the global water cycle and for fresh water resources (e.g., changes in glacial ice cover, sea level, drought frequency).

Concept of the Week: Questions

1. After completing DataStreme WES, I now understand the global water cycle as a flow of [(mass) (energy) (both mass and energy)].
2. After completing DataStreme WES, I now understand that human activity [(may) (may not)] impact the Earth system with implications for the water cycle and water resources.

• 2 December 1959...Malpasset Dam collapsed destroying the French Riviera town of Fréjus, killing 412 people. (Infoplease.com)
• 2 December 1972...The largest sinkhole in the US, "December Giant", collapsed in Alabama.
• 3-10 December 1926...Record rain fell on Yuma, AZ over a week period. On the 4^th 1.10 inches of rain fell, and by the 10^th a total of 4.43 inches had fallen, to set an all-time December monthly record. The mean annual precipitation for Yuma is only 3.38 inches. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 3 December 1952...A remarkable display of sea smoke was seen in Hong Kong harbor. The sea-smoke, induced by a strong surge of arctic air, poured from the water of Kowloon Bay from 8 AM to 9:30 AM. The air temperature near the sea wall was 44 degrees. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 3 December 1982...Big Fork, AR received 14.06 inches of rain, setting a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the state. (NCDC)
• 4 December 1786...The first of two great early December storms began. The storm produced 18 inches of snow at Morristown, NJ, and twenty inches of snow at New Haven, CT. It also resulted in high seas at Nantucket which did great damage. (David Ludlum)
• 4 December 1964...One of the worst ice storms on record was in progress across Massachusetts and eastern New York. Ice accretions reached 1.5 inches in some places. Well over 80,000 homes lost power. Some homes did not have power for 5 days. (Intellicast)
• 4-13 December 1991...Tropical Cyclone Val with gusts to 150 mph caused $700 million damage. Seventeen deaths were reported in American and Western Samoa, with 95 percent of the housed in Savaii either destroyed or badly damaged. Savaii was essentially hit twice by Val as the system completed a loop on the 8^th. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 5 December 1949...A typhoon struck fishing fleet off Korea; several thousand men reported dead. (Infoplease.com)
• 5-9 December 1952...Fog and industrial pollution combined to form the worst smog experienced by London, England. Approximately 1000 tons of dirt particles were trapped in the air. Water droplets and sulfur dioxide combined to form sulfuric acid droplets. As many as 4000 deaths resulted, mainly the old and the ill. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 5-6 December 1968...High surf from an intense storm near Alaska swept rocks and seawater into pavilions at Onekahakaha Beach near Hilo, HI. Water reached 150 feet above high-tide mark at Napili Beach and swept into the swimming pool and ground floor of a hotel there. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 5-6 December 1968...A Genoa low (pressure system) brought heavy rain and snow to northern Italy. Venice received 4.21 inches of rain on the night of the 5^th-6^th, well above the December average rainfall of 2.40 inches. St. Mark's Square was flooded to a depth of 57 inches. (Accord Weather Calendar)

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URL: DS-WES/news.html
Prepared by DS-WES Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D.,
email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2004, The American Meteorological Society.