DataStreme ECS Week Twelve: 28 November-2 December 2011

• End of a season -- With the end of November on Wednesday, 30 November 2011, the autumn meteorological season in the Northern Hemisphere will end with the start of the meteorological winter season on Thursday (1 December). Recall that meteorologists have elected to use a standard three-month grouping to identify each meteorological season. Hence, September, October and November are considered the autumn or fall meteorological season, while the months of December, January and February are the winter season. You will note that the winter solstice, marking the day where the length of daylight is least in the Northern Hemisphere is still three weeks away, falling on early Thursday, 22 December 2011. Since the lowest temperatures typically fall in mid to late January, the meteorological winter tends to be centered on the coldest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
  In addition, the end of November also marks the end of the official hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, along with the eastern and central North Pacific basins.
• The 2011 hurricane seasons reviewed -- A quick review of this year's tropical cyclone statistics for official 2011 hurricane season has been made for both the North Atlantic and North Pacific basins. [AMS DataStreme Atmosphere]
• Peaking over the Earth's atmosphere -- A digital photograph made last July by an astronaut on the International Space Station shows a crescent Moon arising over the limb of the Earth. In addition to the lunar disc, this photograph shows a variety of colors caused by scattering of sunlight by the constituent gases and airborne particles in the relatively thin upper atmosphere that surrounds our planet. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Watching the seasons -- phenology observations and climate change -- For centuries, interested citizens and scientists have been recording the dates of recurring biological and other natural events that appear to be related to the seasons. This tracking of these natural cyclic events, called phenology, if extended over many years, can be used to document how long-term changes in these seasonal events change in response to long-term changes in climate. For more information on recent efforts to establish a nationwide phenological observation network and how it could be used for studying climate change, see this week's Supplemental Information … In Greater Depth.

• Geosynchronous satellite is moved -- NOAA's GOES-15 satellite, which has been "parked" in a geosynchronous orbit since being launched in March 2011, is being moved westward to a position for it to become the nation's GOES West satellite, replacing the current GOES-11 satellite that will be retired soon. Visible satellite images taken by sensors onboard GOES-15 in early September and last week show the changing prospective of the North American continent during the move. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
• First image obtained from new Earth-observing satellite -- Last week a NASA team at the Space Science and Engineering Center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus created the first image obtained from the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard NASA's new National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite. [NASA GSFC]
• 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]

• Lowering the freezing point of water -- Chemists at the University of Utah claim that they have determined that water could be cooled to a temperature as low as 55 degrees below zero Fahrenheit before it will absolutely freezes. At that temperature, the molecular structure of water changes physically liquid to "intermediate ice" to form tetrahedron shapes, with each water molecule loosely bonded to four others. The chemists claim that their research has applicability in climate models as a better estimate of atmospheric water could be obtained. [University of Utah]
• Searching potential climate related changes in soil carbon -- A team of scientists from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and colleagues from ten countries are investigating how carbon sequestered in soil could change in response to changes in the climate. Current estimates suggest that on a global scale, soils may store approximately three times as much carbon as that found in the atmosphere or in living plants. The researchers are considering a variety of feedback mechanisms. [Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory]

• Sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide increases may be less than extreme projections -- In a recently released study, scientists from Oregon State University, Princeton University, Harvard University, Cornell University, the University of Oregon and the University of Barcelona claim that the rate of global temperature increase that would occur from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies, including that of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. However, they do state that global warming is real and that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide will have multiple serious impacts. [Oregon State University]

• Carbon cycling in biosphere during last Ice Age appears smaller than today -- An international team of scientists recently presented their reconstruction of the plants' productivity and the amount of carbon stored in the ocean and terrestrial biosphere during the Last Glacial Maximum (between 26,500 and 19,000 years ago), based in part by direct measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide trapped in air bubbles obtained from ice cores taken from the Antarctic ice sheet. They have found that carbon cycling in the terrestrial biosphere appears to have been much smaller during the last Ice Age than in today's climate. [University of Bristol]

• Fisheries could be degraded by effects of climate change -- Researchers at the University of British Columbia have found that the changing climate can exert an impact upon the economic viability of current fisheries practices. Other factors that may unfavorably impact marine species include overfishing and pollution. [University of British Columbia]
• How drought-tolerant grasses evolved -- An international team of researchers including those at the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center has discovered how grasses using the C4 photosynthetic pathway were able to evolve and become more efficient at harvesting energy from the Sun in hot and air conditions. This evolution in the grasses may have evolved more than 20 separated times in the last 30 million years. The researchers reconstructed the grass family tree that contains 531 species by using DNA sequence data from three chloroplast genes. They hope that their results will help develop more drought-tolerant grains. [EurekAlert!]
• Marine biodiversity driven by ancient environment -- Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Norway's University of Bergen have found from their analysis of fossil records that the evolution of marine life over most of the Phanerozoic eon encompassing the past 500 million years has been robustly and independently driven by both ocean chemistry and sea level changes. The researchers used a method called information transfer to identify causal relationships between diversity and environmental proxy records that included ancient global climates. [University of Wisconsin News]

• Saving classic masterpiece from modern air pollution -- An engineering professor from the University of Southern California and his colleagues have been developing air quality monitors to control the atmospheric environment surrounding Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" masterpiece that is located in the church refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. During the last several decades, this masterpiece has been facing an increased risk of damage from air pollution, as Milan is one of Western Europe's most polluted cities. [USC News]
• Natural hazards costs continue to rise -- The Guardian reported a recent study from the Carbon Disclosure Project that indicates several of the world's largest companies suffered losses that reached several million dollars from flooding or drought during the last year. [NASA Earth Observatory Blogs]
• Steps identified to help slash California's greenhouse gas emissions -- Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a San Francisco-based energy consulting firm have outlined the seven measures that Californians can take to achieve the mandated low-carbon future for the Golden State. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]
• Climate policy support appears undermined by widespread public misperception --Researchers at George Mason, San Diego State, and Yale Universities who conducted a national survey of the American public last year recently reported that many people believe that significant disagreement continues among scientists about global warming and as a result, these people tend to be less certain that global warming is occurring and are less supportive of climate policy. [George Mason University]
• 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.

Concept of the Week: Human health and climate change

Climate scientists and other experts studying the projected changes in the global climate have been concerned that these changes can have potentially adverse effects upon human health. The specific health outcomes are highly uncertain. However, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program's (USGCRP) Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States Report, several key health-related issues on the national level that could be affected by climate are: heat issues and heat waves, air quality, extreme weather events, heat associated diseases, pollen effects, and vulnerable groups.

One of the more obvious consequences of changes in climate is the increased incidence of temperature-related illnesses and deaths, especially those that would occur with heat waves, or episodes of extreme heat. Projected increases in air temperature and rising humidity levels across the nation during the 21st century would also be accompanied by increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, where air temperature and heat indices would exceed certain threshold levels for several days. In the United States, recent heat waves have resulted in numerous deaths, especially in large metropolitan areas. The elderly, the poor in urban areas and those with underlying health issues (such as diabetes and hypertension) appear to be the most susceptible to higher air temperatures and extended heat waves. Some models indicate that mortality rates would increase more rapidly in northern cities, where populations are less accustomed to the less-frequent heat waves. Using a model that includes a high emissions scenario, the average annual number of heat-related deaths in the Chicago (IL) metropolitan area could reach 700 by 2050 and 1200 by 2100.

Exposure to air pollution that would include a variety of gas species and particulate matter could result in health-related problems, especially those people with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Changes in climate could increase air pollutant exposure in several ways. Large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns resulting in heat waves are often stagnant, which reduce dispersion and create environmental conditions for photochemical reactions that increases ground-level ozone concentrations. Increased ozone has been shown to cause reduction in lung function. These heat waves associated with stagnant weather patterns would also increase fuel combustion for power generation needed for air conditioning. Changes in climate could also affect emissions of natural air pollutants and airborne allergens.

Certain health effects would be related to extreme weather events. In addition to above-described heat waves, increases in injuries and deaths could occur if extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones (hurricanes or tropical storms) and floods would increase in frequency. The disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, LA and the Gulf Coast in 2005 could serve as an example. Water-borne diseases can be related to water contamination caused by heavy precipitation events. A Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee, WI occurred in 1993 in which 54 people died when the municipal drinking water supply became contaminated by sewage that was not properly treated because of overtaxed storm sewers. Some climate models suggest an increased incidence of extreme weather events across the nation during a warmer 21st century, especially in the frequency of excessive precipitation events. If improvement in the sewerage and water treatment facilities are not made, projected in creases in intense precipitation events could pose an increased health risk to many people, especially in the Northeast and Midwest. Chicago could have sewer overflow events going up by 50 to 120 percent in the future. In addition to the casualties that would be directly related to the natural disasters, such as drowning, some secondary effects to these disasters have been suggested, including problems with public health infrastructures and with post traumatic stress disorder following the event.

Increases in those infectious diseases borne by insects, ticks and rodents could be possible with future changes in climate. Temperature appears to serve as a major constraint on the range of microbes and vectors, meaning that some diseases could be spread poleward with higher temperatures. While malaria, yellow fever and dengue fever have been nearly eradicated across the nation, some other diseases, such as Lyme disease and encephalitis, transmitted between humans by blood-feeding insects, ticks and mites, may occur in some areas as the result of extended spells of warm wet winters, cold springs. Rising temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations appear to increase pollen production and lengthen the pollen season. Consequently, highly allergenic pollen could pose an increased health risk to many people.

The report also cautions that particular groups of people could be especially vulnerable to future climate change, highlighting the increases in the incidence of diabetes and obesity, which make individuals more susceptible to disease or air quality or heat.

While a range of negative health impacts would be possible from future climate change, adaptation would likely help protect the majority of the nation's population. This adaptation would entail maintenance of the public health and community infrastructure across the nation. Adequate water treatment systems would help curb waterborne diseases, while health care facilities and emergency shelters would help minimize the impacts of heat stress, air pollution, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects, ticks, and rodents.

Concept of the Week: Questions

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

1. The number of deaths that could occur in a Chicago heat wave by 2050 under the highest danger estimates could reach [(350), (700), (1200)].
2. The incidence of water and food borne diseases [(are),(are not)] likely to increase.

• 29 November 1975...Red River was buried under 34 inches of snow in 24 hours, establishing a record for the state of New Mexico. (The Weather Channel)
• 29 November 1985...The temperature at Bismarck, ND plunged to 30 degrees below zero to establish their record low for the month of November. The high that day was 4 degrees below zero. (The Weather Channel)
• 29 November 1989...Sault Ste Marie, MI finished the month of November with a record 46.8 inches of snow. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 30 November 1976...MacLeod Harbor, AK reported a precipitation total for November of 70.99 inches, which established a state record for any month of the year. (The National Weather Summary)
• 30 November 1991...Minneapolis, MN ended the month with 46.9 inches of snow, the most ever for November and for any month. Although the official start of winter was still 3 weeks away, the city had already surpassed the normal seasonal snowfall record with 55.1 inches since 1 October (normal for the entire winter is 49.2 inches). (Intellicast)
• 1 December 1831...The coldest December of record in the northeastern U.S. commenced. Temperatures in New York City averaged 22 degrees, with just four days above freezing, and at Burlington, VT the temperature never did get above freezing. The Erie Canal was closed the first day of December, and remained closed the entire month. (David Ludlum)
• 1 December 1913...A six day Front Range snowstorm began, ultimately producing 45.7 inches of snow at Denver, CO, the biggest single snowstorm on record for that city. It produced a record total of 46 inches at Denver, CO. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
• 3-10 December 1926...Record rain fell on Yuma, AZ over a one-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 Guide 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 1982...The temperature in New York City's Central Park reached 72 degrees to establish a record high for December. The month as a whole was also the warmest of record. (The Weather Channel)

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.