PREVIEW WEEK: 30 August-3 September 2010

• A change in seasons -- Tuesday, 31 August 2010, marks the end of meteorological summer, the three-month span of June, July and August that meteorologists frequently use for record keeping processes. Meteorological autumn (September, October and November) starts the following day, 1 September 2010, also represents the first day of meteorological autumn. Meteorologists frequently use these three-month meteorological seasons for record keeping processes. Additional information will be presented in the next several weeks concerning meteorological seasons and the astronomical seasons, such as the familiar autumn that begins on the autumnal equinox in three weeks (Wednesday, 22 September 2010).

• State and city weather extremes for July 2010 -- The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has posted a listing of some of the notable extremes in temperature, precipitation and other weather elements across the nation for the recently completed month of July in "Selected U.S. City and State Extremes for July 2010". Note that this site may be updated during the following several weeks as more data are received and analyzed.

• Asia's glaciers are retreating -- An international team of scientists, including those from the US Geological Society, recently published "The Glaciers of Asia" the ninth in an 11-volume series to be published as the USGS Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World. This team considered the glacier status throughout Asia and indicated that many of these glaciers were retreating due to large-scale changes in climate. The researchers were concerned because many of these glaciers, especially those in the Himalayas, represent the water source for millions of people and the glacial melt could cause flood conditions for many residents of south Asia. In addition to the Himalayan glaciers, other glaciers surveyed were found in Russia and China. [USGS Newsroom]
• Shrinking upper-atmospheric layer may be linked with reduced solar radiation output -- Researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder and their colleagues report that the recent drop in the ultraviolet radiation levels reaching the Earth's outer atmosphere from the Sun may be responsible for the temporary shrinkage of the vertical extent of the thermosphere, a rarified layer of gas that ranges in altitude from about 55 to more than 300 miles. The current minimum in the Sun's approximately 11-year magnetic cycle is unexpectedly low, resulting in the reduction in the thermosphere's thickness to a 43-year minimum. [UCAR/NCAR]
• El Niño events appear to be strengthening -- Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory report that their analysis of Pacific Ocean temperatures using data collected by buoys, ships and NOAA satellites since at least 1982 indicate a change in the intensity and the location of the region of anomalously warm equatorial Pacific waters associated with an El Niño event. These El Niño events, which represent anomalous changes in both atmospheric and oceanic circulation regimes over several months to more than one year, are typically noticed with a significant warming in the waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific. However, the researchers have found that recently, the region of abnormally warm waters occur more frequently and with greater strength over the central equatorial Pacific. These changes may be related to changes in climate and could have significant implications for long-range weather forecasting. [NOAA News] [NASA JPL]
• 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]

• Discovering how plants become drought-resistant --Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified sets of proteins in living plants that appear to make the plants better able to withstand water stress. This research would help agricultural interests in selecting new crop plant strains that could be grown on marginal croplands around the globe or where changes in climate increase the frequency and severity of drought. [University of Wisconsin News]
• Life emerges on Alaskan island after volcanic eruption -- Scientists from the US Geological Survey, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Alaska have been studying how terrestrial and marine ecosystems have returned and recovered on and in the waters around Kasatochi Island, a remote island in Alaska's Aleutian Island chain, following a catastrophic volcanic eruption in August 2008. [USGS Newsroom]

• Hurricane history lies in core samples -- An oceans scientist at the US Army Corps of Engineers' Duck Research Pier in North Carolina has been researching past hurricanes using sand and mud core samples collected from the Caribbean islands of Antigua and St. Croix. The goal of her research is to make predictions concerning the impact that changes in the hurricane seasons could have upon residents along the Atlantic Coast. [Outer Banks Sentinel] [Editor's note: Special thanks are extended to Terri Kirby Hathaway, an Oceans LIT Leader and Marine Education Specialist for the North Carolina Sea Grant. EJH]
• Large release of carbon dioxide from deep ocean may have accelerated end of last Ice Age -- A scientist at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and colleagues from other research institutions in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Spain have used radiocarbon dating techniques on several deep ocean cores from the South Pacific to determine that large amounts of deep-ocean carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere between approximately 19,000 and 13,000 years ago, near the end of the last Ice Age. They conclude that this release of carbon dioxide may have helped accelerate the end of this Ice Age, which ended approximately 10,000 years ago. [Lawrence Livermore National News Public Affairs]

• New methods used to assess deterioration of historic buildings by climate change -- New research from engineers at Scotland's University of Edinburgh has provided tools that can be used by preservationists to assess the effects of climate change on the deterioration of rock and masonry of historic buildings and monuments. [ScienceDaily]
• 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.

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.

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.

• 30 August 2000...The temperature rose to 111 degrees at the North Little Rock Airport, setting a new record for the highest temperature ever observed at that location. (The Weather Doctor)
• 31 August 1885...A record 71-day dry period began at Calgary, Alberta. (The Weather Doctor)
• 31 August 1889...Los Angeles, CA set two local rainfall records as 0.61 inches fell, the maximum 24-hour and monthly records for August. (Intellicast)
• 31 August 1915...The temperature at Bartlesville, OK dipped to 38 degrees to establish a state record for the month of August. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 August 1971...The low of 84 degrees and high of 108 degrees at Death Valley, CA were the lowest of the month. The average daily high was 115.7 degrees that August, and the average daily low was 93.4 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 August 1987...Frost was reported in South Dakota. Aberdeen, SD established a record for the month of August with a morning low of 32 degrees, and Britton, SD dipped to 31 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
• 1 September 1914...The town of Bloomingdale, MI was deluged with 9.78 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record for the Wolverine State. (31^st-1^st) (The Weather Channel) (NCDC)
• 1 September 1955...The temperature at Los Angeles, CA soared to an all-time high of 110 degrees during an eight-day string of 100-degree weather. (David Ludlum)
• 2 September 1935...Perhaps the most intense hurricane ever to hit the U.S. struck the Florida Keys with sustained winds of over 155 mph with gusts exceeding 200 mph. The "Labor Day Hurricane" produced a fifteen-foot tide and waves thirty feet high. More than 400 persons perished in the storm on that Labor Day, including many World War I veterans building a bridge from the Keys to the mainland. The barometric pressure at Matecumbe Bay, FL hit a record low for the U.S. of 26.35 inches of mercury (or 892.3 millibars). (David Ludlum)
• 2 September 1950...The temperature at Mecca, CA soared to 126 degrees to establish the U.S. record high temperature for the month of September. The low that morning was 89 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
• 2 September 1961...Denver, CO received 4.2 inches of snow, the earliest measurable snow on record for this city. (Intellicast)
• 3 September 1953...The temperature at Erie, PA reached 99 degrees, and Stroudsburg, PA established a state record for September with a reading of 106 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
• 3 September 1961...Denver, CO received 4.2 inches of snow, their earliest snow of record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
• 3 September 1970...During the early evening hours, in the midst of a severe hailstorm at Coffeyville, KS, a stone 17.5 inches in circumference and 1.67 pounds in weight was recovered. At the time, it was the largest measured hailstone in U.S. weather records. Average stone size from the storm was five inches in diameter, with another stone reportedly eight inches in diameter. (David Ludlum) A larger, though lighter stone has since fallen in Nebraska, 22 June 2003 (The Weather Doctor)
• 5 September 1925...The temperature at Centerville, AL soared to 112 degrees to establish a state record. Every reporting station in Alabama was 100 degrees or above that afternoon. (The Weather Channel)
• 5 September 1950...Hurricane Easy produced the greatest 24-hour rainfall in U.S. weather records up to that time. The hurricane deluged Yankeetown, on the upper west coast of Florida, with 38.70 inches of rain. While this US record has since been replaced by 43 inches of rain at Alvin, TX on 25-26 July 1979, it remains the 24-hour precipitation record for the Sunshine State. (David Ludlum) (NCDC)
• 5 September 1958...The heaviest hailstone recorded in Britain had a weight of 0.31 pounds (141 grams) and fell at Horsham (Sussex), Great Britain. (The Weather Doctor)
• 5 September 1970...Heavy rain from the remnants of a tropical system from the eastern Pacific spread across the Southwest as 11.40 inches fell in 24 hours at Workman Creek, AZ to establish a 24-hour precipitation record for the Grand Canyon State, while an estimated six inches of rain fell at Bug Point, UT, setting a 24-hour precipitation record for the Beehive State. (NCDC)

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.