PREVIEW WEEK: 29 August-2 September 2011

• A change in seasons -- Wednesday, 31 August 2011, 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 2011, 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 (Friday, 23 September 2011).
• Easy access to historical hurricane tracks is made available -- NOAA Coastal Services Center in partnership with the agency's National Hurricane Center and National Climatic Data Center has improved a mapping application tool called "Historical Hurricane Tracks" that will permit the public to more easily generate customized maps of hurricane tracks and hurricane landfalls based on more than 150 years of Atlantic hurricane data. The website http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/ from where these maps can be accessed contains tropical cyclone data and information on coastal county hurricane strikes data through 2010. A searchable database of population changes versus hurricane strikes for U.S. coastal counties from 1900 to 2000 is available, along with detailed reports on the life history and effects of U.S. tropical cyclones since 1958. [NOAA News]
• Efforts made to build a "weather-ready" nation -- NOAA officials recently launched a comprehensive initiative to build a "Weather-ready" nation designed to make the US safer from weather related disasters by saving more lives and protecting livelihoods. Concurrently, NOAA announced that as of mid August, the US had experienced a record-tying nine separate disasters during 2011, each with an economic loss of at least $1 billion. [NOAA News]
• A new heat safety website is launched for the Spanish-speaking public -- As part of its effort to help the US to become a "weather-ready" nation, NOAA's National Weather Service recently launched a new heat safety website in Spanish that is designed to educate the nation’s growing Hispanic population about the health dangers of prolonged heat exposure. [NOAA News]

• July drought report -- NOAA's National Climate Data Center has posted its July 2011 drought report online. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately 26 percent of the coterminous United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of July, while 33 percent of the area had severely to extremely wet conditions.
• Review of global weather and climate for July 2011 --Scientists with the NOAA National Climatic Data Center recently released their preliminary monthly climate statistics for July 2010. The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2010 was the seventh highest reading for the period of record that extends back to 1880 when a sufficiently dense worldwide climate network was developed. The global average land surface temperature for July 2011 was the fifth highest on record, while the global ocean surface temperature for July was the eleventh highest. For the first seven months of 2010, the January-July combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the eleventh highest on record, as was the global average ocean surface temperature. The global land surface temperature for January through July was the eighth highest.
  The areal extent of the Arctic sea ice in July 2011 was the smallest since satellite records began in 1979, ? while the Antarctic sea ice for the month was above average. [NOAA News]

• Satellites detect a slight reversal in long-term global sea level rise -- Sea level data recently collected by altimeters on several NASA satellites indicates that a fall in global sea level during the last year following a nearly two decade-long increase in global sea level by approximately 3 millimeters per year since the early 1990s. Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory attribute this recent decrease of approximately one half centimeter to the switch from El Niño to La Niña conditions in the Pacific. El Niño and La Niña events that represent anomalous atmospheric and oceanic regimes across the tropics and subtropics contribute to changes in sea level changes through changes in ocean temperature and precipitation patterns. [NASA JPL]
• Agreement reached on sharing environmental data for the Arctic -- Last week, officials from NOAA and three global energy companies (Shell Exploration & Production, ConocoPhillips, and Statoil USA E&P Inc) signed an agreement that would call for the sharing of oceanic, meteorological and coastal data obtained from the Arctic basis. The sharing of these data sets would enhance climate science throughout the basin. [NOAA News] [Note this link is to a pdf document and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader; see below]
• German research vessel reaches the North Pole -- At the start of last week (22 August 2011) the research icebreaker Polarstern of Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research reported that it reached the North Pole. Researchers on the Polarstern are investigating on changes in the water, ice and air in the region around the pole. With little Arctic sea ice cover the route via the pole to the investigation area in the Canadian Arctic was made possible. [Alfred Wegener Institute]
• 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]

• A pause in Arctic ice melt could occur in near future -- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research claim that their computer modeling study indicates that the observed Arctic sea ice loss during recent decades could cease in the near future, with possible ice expansion occurring over the next several decades prior to a return to decreasing ice. They believe that the possible increase in Arctic sea ice could be due to variations in atmospheric conditions involved with large-scale wind patterns. [UCAR/NCAR News Center]
• Newly discovered ocean current could change climate picture -- A team of scientists from the US, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands is currently collecting oceanographic data in the vicinity of a recently discovered ocean current in the North Atlantic off the coast of Iceland called the North Icelandic Jet. These researchers claim that this deep-ocean circulation could significantly influence the ocean's response to changing climate. [NSF News]
• Decomposition of a greenhouse gas studied -- Researchers from Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and their colleagues from other European institutions have recently identified the structure of an enzyme along with the mechanism responsible for the decomposition of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a greenhouse gas that is considered to be 300 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide in affecting the climate. Nitrous oxide, which also destroys the earth's protective ozone layer, is generated on excessively fertilized fields when microorganisms decompose nitrate fertilizers. [Karlsruhe Institute of Technology]

• Irrigation has an impact on global carbon uptake -- Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison claim that on a global basis, irrigation between 1998 and 2002 increased agricultural productivity, which resulted in a sizeable impact on carbon uptake from the atmosphere by crops. The increase in global agricultural productivity by irrigation was approximately as large as the entire agricultural output of the US. [University of Wisconsin-Madison]
• Claims of drought-driven declines in plant productivity refuted -- Using NASA satellite data, a team of scientists from Boston University and Brazil's Universities of Viçosa and Campinas refutes earlier claims that drought has induced a decline in global plant productivity during the past decade and posed a threat to global food security. [EurekAlert!]
• Florida's coral reefs unable to endure a "cold snap" -- Scientists at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science have found an unprecedented level of mortality in Florida's coral reefs during the record-breaking cold snap across sections of the Sunshine State in January 2010. [Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science]

• Fall season climate outlook for the nation issued -- Recently, forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center issued their outlooks for temperature and precipitation patterns across United States for the three months of September through November 2011, which are defined as meteorological autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. The temperature outlook indicates that the northeastern quadrant of the nation, especially from the upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes extending into the New England States, and the Southwest, primarily over Arizona, New Mexico and adjacent states, would have a better than even chance of experiencing higher than normal temperatures. Elsewhere, the outlook for sections of the Northwest. West Coast and the Southeast does not appear to have a strong signal, resulting in an outlook that calls for equal chances of above or below average fall temperatures.
  The precipitation outlook for Fall 2011 indicates that the Pacific Northwest and the northern Plains would have a better than even chance of above average precipitation. The forecasters anticipate that sections of the Southwest extending from southern Arizona eastward into west Texas would have a good chance of below average fall rainfall. Elsewhere, the fall precipitation outlook called for equal chances of above or below average precipitation. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center]
• National seasonal drought outlook issued -- The forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center also issued their US Seasonal Drought Outlook that would run from September through November 2011, covering meteorological autumn. These forecasters foresee improvement in the current drought conditions across Atlantic coastal sections of the Southeast and sections of the Midwest. Marginal improvement may occur across the southern and central Plains. However, current drought conditions were expected to persist or new drought areas develop over the southern tier of states, extending from Arizona eastward to the Florida Panhandle, with Texas continuing to remain under this historic drought. Sections of the Colorado River Valley in the Southwest and the Midwest around the western Great Lakes could experience development of drought conditions during this upcoming fall. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center]

• Wars could be driven by climate cycles -- An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Columbia University’s Earth Institute recently reported that periodic increases in warfare could be linked with the global cyclic variations in climate associated with El Niño events. The onset in this three to seven year cycle in the atmospheric and oceanic circulation regimes appears to double the risk of civil wars in at least 90 tropical countries during the last half century at a time when regional temperatures increase and rainfall decreases. [The Earth Institute]
• 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.

• 29 August 1876...A torrential downpour inundated St John's Newfoundland with 173.2 mm (6.8 inches) of rainfall, the greatest single daily accumulation ever recorded in the province. (The Weather Doctor)
• 29 August 1965...The observatory on top of Mount Washington NH reported a snowfall of 2.5 inches of snow, a national record for the month of August. (The Weather Doctor)
• 29 August 2005...As Hurricane Katrina traveled across the northern Gulf of Mexico toward the Louisiana Coast, a reconnaissance aircraft determined that Katrina's minimum central pressure was 902 millibars (or 26.64 inches of mercury), the fifth lowest pressure ever recorded in an Atlantic hurricane. Katrina was also the third most-intense landfalling hurricane in US history based on a minimum landfall pressure of 920 millibars (or 27.17 inches of mercury). (The Weather Doctor)
• 29 August 2007...With its high temperature pegged at 113degrees, Phoenix, AZ set a new record of 29 days with 110 degree or higher temperatures. (The Weather Doctor)
• 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)

Return to DataStreme ECS website

Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2011, The American Meteorological Society.