Thanksgiving Week: 21-25 November 2011

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving Week from the AMS DS ECS Central Staff and Ed Hopkins!

• A Long Polar Night -- After being above the horizon for only 12 minutes last Saturday, the sun set at 1:18 PM Alaska Standard Time tomorrow (19 November 2011) at Barrow, the northernmost city in Alaska, for the last time this year. The next time the sun will rise above the local horizon in Barrow will be at 1:11 PM AST on 23 January 2012. While the sun will be below the horizon for the next 65 days, residents of this city will have roughly three hours of some diffuse sunlight each day that is equivalent to civil twilight, provided the cloud cover is not too thick. To check the sunrise and sunset times of Barrow or any location in the United States go to the US Naval Observatory's on-line, interactive service for the entire year.
• Four minority serving institutions receive awards to train next generation of scientists -- Last week, NOAA's Office of Education announced that the agency has awarded more than $10 million to four minority serving universities to train and graduate students who pursue applied research in NOAA-related scientific fields. These four universities will be the lead institutions that will partner with 20 other colleges to form four cooperative science centers where students will be trained in core scientific fields for NOAA such as remote sensing, environmental science, living marine resources, and atmospheric science. [NOAA News]
• S'COOL project is "cool" -- Young students from around the world have been making ground-level cloud observations as part of NASA's S'COOL project (Students' Cloud Observations On-Line) that are then used to help validate cloud observations made by sensors onboard NASA satellites. Within the last week, the S'COOL program received its 100,000th student cloud observation. [NASA Langley Research Center]

• A global review of October 2011 temperatures -- Preliminary analysis of worldwide combined ocean and land surface temperatures by scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center indicates that the recently completed month of October 2011 ranked as the eighth warmest global October surface temperature since a sufficiently dense and reliable network began in 1880. They also found that the globally averaged land surface temperature for October 2011 was the second highest on record for October, while that month's global ocean surface temperature was the eleventh highest. Furthermore, the scientists reported that the combined land and ocean surface temperatures averaged over the first ten months of 2011 was the tenth highest January through October average in 132 years of record. The January-October 2011 global average land surface temperature was the sixth highest, while the corresponding global ocean surface temperature ranked twelfth highest. La Niña conditions, which strengthened during October, could represent a significant factor in the global ocean temperatures in the upcoming months as these conditions were expected to continue through the next three months. The average Arctic sea ice extent for October 2011 was the second lowest October sea ice extent since satellite surveillance began in 1979. Conversely, the October sea ice extent around Antarctica was the twelfth largest on record. [NOAA News]
  NOTE: Beginning in Oct 2011, the National Climatic Data Center will be using an upgraded data set of monthly mean temperatures in calculating global land surface temperature anomalies and trends for its Global Monthly State of the Climate Report.
• October drought report -- The National Climate Data Center has posted its October 2011 drought report online. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately 23 percent of the coterminous United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of October, while 25 percent of the area had severely to extremely wet conditions.

• Separating signal and noise in changing global climate -- A research team from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis, NOAA and the U.K. Meteorology Office Hadley Centre recently reported that in order to separate human-caused global warming from the "noise" of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long. The scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite measurements of temperature of the lower troposphere and saw a clear signal of human-induced warming of the planet. [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]
• 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]

• Three-month seasonal weather outlook released -- Late last week, forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) released an update their Winter Outlook for meteorological winter (the three months of December 2011 through February 2012) across the nation. They feel that the winter weather will be influenced by strengthening La Niña conditions, an anomalous atmospheric and oceanic circulation regime that tends to favor lower than average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. In terms of their temperature outlook, the forecasters foresee a better than equal chance for above average winter temperatures across the southern and central sections of the nation, primarily from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas eastward to the Atlantic Coast of the Carolinas and northward to the lower Ohio Valley. On the other hand, the West Coast, the northern Rockies and the northern Plains to the upper Midwest would have a good chance of experiencing below average temperatures. Their precipitation outlook calls for better than even chances that the Pacific Northwest the northern Rockies and the adjacent northern Plains, along with sections of the Midwest, extending from the lower Ohio Valley to the eastern Great Lakes, should have better than equal chances of above average winter precipitation. However, the southern tier of states, from southern Arizona eastward to the Middle Atlantic coast would experience dry conditions, especially across sections of southern Florida and much of Texas. A summary of the prognostic discussion of the outlook for non-technical users is available from CPC.
• National seasonal drought outlook issued -- The forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center also issued their US Seasonal Drought Outlook that will run through February 2012. This outlook indicates marginal to significant improvement in the drought conditions across sections of the Midwest. However, drought conditions were anticipated to persist or develop across the Southeast, the Gulf Coast, Texas and the Southwest.

• Acid pollution in rain seen to decrease with emissions -- Researchers at the University of Illinois recently completed a 25-year study of acidic pollutants in rainwater collected across the US by the National Atmospheric Deposition Program's network and have found that both the frequency and concentration of acid rainfall has decreased. They attribute this decrease to regulations such as the Clean Air Act that have reduced emissions. [University of Illinois News Bureau]
• Day-to-day weather changes becoming more extreme and erratic -- Using a recently developed climate model that could be used to inspect daily weather data, researchers at Princeton University report that during recent decades, day-to-day variations in weather, such as in sunshine and rainfall, have increased in amplitude. The researchers warn that these larger daily oscillations in weather could have consequences for ecosystem stability, the control of pests and diseases, as well as for various industries which are vulnerable to inconsistent and extreme weather. [Princeton University]
• Links between climate and groundwater availability should help prepare for drought -- Researchers at North Carolina State University report that groundwater available from unconfined aquifers in the Southeast during any month appears to be directly influenced by the amount of precipitation falling on the watershed three months earlier, while the streamflow in the watershed is influenced by the overall groundwater levels combined over the previous three months. The researchers claim that this knowledge of how climate and precipitation influence surface and groundwater levels could help water resource managers across the Southeast. [North Carolina State University Newsroom]

• Depending upon latitude, forests could run cooler or warmer than open areas -- A team of scientists from the US, Canada and Germany reports from their research that forests influence air temperature of a region and their influence largely depends on latitude. In air temperature data collected from forested and open lands, they found that air temperatures in forested land were higher than nearby open land north of 45 degrees latitude, but lower south of 35 degrees latitude; between 35 and 45 degrees latitude, forested and open land had similar temperatures. [Northern Research Station News Release]
• Great Plains river basins threatened by pumping of aquifers -- Scientists at Oregon State University and Colorado State University have found that the pumping of groundwater from the High Plains aquifer has significantly reduced the suitable habitat for native fishes in many Great Plains streams. These researchers warn that the water loss mean that the ecological future of these fish during the next three decades appears "bleak." [Oregon State University News]
• Future for San Francisco Bay marshes appears bleak -- In a study led by PRBO Conservation Science, a non-profit organization founded as Point Reyes Bird Observatory, researchers paint a bleak picture for the future of San Francisco Bay's tidal marshes especially under high-end sea-level rise scenarios that appear increasingly likely. [PRBO Conservation Service]

• Insects used to show climate variability during early Holocene -- Scientists at the University of Illinois and the University of British Columbia have analyzed the abundance and diversity of ancient midge larvae, or tiny insects, in core samples from Alaskan lakes to reconstruct a reliable record of temperature fluctuations during the early Holocene epoch (10,000 to 5,500 years ago). Interestingly, the climate of polar regions appears to been warmer during the Holocene Thermal Maximum that at present. [University of Illinois News Bureau]
• Date and rate of planet's most extreme extinction pinpointed -- Based upon analysis of ash layers and marine fossils from China, researchers from North America and China have determined that the Earth's most extreme mass extinction peaked approximately 252.28 million years ago and lasted less than 200,000 years, with most of the extinction lasting about 20,000 years. [University of Calgary UToday]

• Recommendations made for managing annual climate change aid -- University of British Columbia researchers recently recommended methods of how to manage a $100 billion annual commitment made by last year's United Nations climate conference to help the developing world respond to climate change. In advance of an upcoming major United Nations climate conference, these researchers made specific recommendations for ensuring that countries meet the funding commitment, that waste and misappropriation are minimized and that money is directed to the most effective programs. [University of British Columbia News Room]
• 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]

• New space missions to investigate Martian climate -- NASA is preparing for the launch of its Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission in November or December 2011 that will investigate Mars' past and present climate, in order to determine its ability to sustain microbial life. A mobile rover called Curiosity will be deployed on the surface and collect soil for analysis. Another mission called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission, scheduled to launched in late 2013, will orbit Mars and is intended to investigate the Red Planet's upper atmosphere, helping determine what caused the Martian atmosphere-and water- to be lost to space, making the climate increasingly inhospitable for life. [NASA GSFC]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Evolution of Climate Models

Climate scientists have been building increasingly sophisticated, mathematical climate models to serve two main purposes: test the sensitivity of the climate to altered conditions and simulate climate over time, either back into the past or forward into the future. The simplest, early type of climate model (zero dimensional) was the "energy balance model", which provides an average planetary temperature from incoming and outgoing radiation. A one-dimensional energy balance model determines the surface temperature from the energy balance at individual latitude belts.

More complex models involve the physical equations of motion (gas laws, thermodynamics and radiation interactions) subject to climate forcings, the boundary conditions of solar radiation, surface properties and atmospheric composition. As computers improved, models have included a three-dimensional oceanic circulation ("atmosphere-ocean coupling"), then interactions between the atmosphere, cryosphere and geosphere, with climate feedback mechanisms involving the exchanges of heat and water. Finally, models have been able to incorporate the improved knowledge of the biogeochemical processes. Climate models calculate variables such as temperature at individual points within the three-dimensional grid of cells across the Earth's surface and vertically through the atmosphere, ocean, ice and land. A tradeoff exists between the number of grid points (the spatial resolution) and the number of numerical computations. Time and space accuracy costs increased computational time and expense.

The development of numerical weather prediction models during the 1960s and 1970s spurred the development of General Circulation Models (GCMs) for climate. One of the early atmospheric GCMs was developed at Princeton University's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). By the 1990s, comprehensive climate models were being perfected with three-dimensional oceanic circulation. Ultimately, the term GCM could be used to refer to a Global Climate Model that represents the major climate system components (atmosphere, ocean, land surface and polar ice) and their interactions. The Community Climate Model at the National Center for Atmospheric Research is one of the most comprehensive climate models currently available. This model has been used to determine the future temperature response for several scenarios concerning the release of greenhouse gases through the 21st century as proposed by the IPCC reports.

Concept of the Week: Questions

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

1. General circulation models are generally [(less), (more)] sophisticated than energy balance models.
2. Increasing the spatial resolution of a global climate model causes the computational time to [(increase),(decrease),(remain the same)].

• 23 November 1909...Rattlesnake Creek was deluged with 7.17 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a record for the state of Idaho. (The Weather Channel)
• 23 November 1943...Northern New Hampshire was in the grips of a record snowstorm that left a total of 55 inches at Berlin, 56 inches at Randolph and many other locations over 40 inches. The 56-inch total at Randolph in Coos County established a 24-hour snowfall record for the state. In Maine, Middle Dam received a record 35 inches of snow in 24 hours. (David Ludlum)
• 23 November 1974...Bismarck, ND was in the middle of a 5-day snowstorm during which 28.3 inches fell, the greatest on record. (Intellicast)
• 23 November 1983...A 24-hour snowfall record for Duluth, MN was broken with 16.9 inches. 19.7 inches fell during the entire storm, also a record.
• 23 November 1991...La Crosse, WI set a new record for 24-hour snowfall with 13 inches. This storm brought the monthly total to 28.2 inches, also a record. (Intellicast)
• 24 November 1950...The temperature at Chicago, IL dipped to 2 degrees below zero to equal their record for the month established on the 29^th in 1872. On the first of the month that year, Chicago established a record high for November with a reading of 81 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
• 26 November 1896...Snow and high winds hit the Northern Plains and the Upper Mississippi Valley, with a Thanksgiving Day blizzard across North Dakota. The storm was followed by a severe cold wave in the Upper Midwest. The temperature at Pokegama Dam plunged to 45 degrees below zero, which remains the lowest recorded November temperature in Minnesota. (David Ludlum)

Return to DataStreme Earth Climate Systems website

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