12-16 December 2011

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2012 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 16 January 2012. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Climate News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

• GOES-15 satellite replaces 12-year old GOES-11 satellite -- Last Tuesday, NOAA activated GOES-15 satellite as the nation's operational geosynchronous environmental satellite used to monitor weather systems across western North America, Hawaii and a large section of the eastern and central Pacific Ocean basin. This new satellite, launched in March 2010, replaces the agency's GOES-11 satellite that was deactivated after 12 years of service. GOES-15 joins GOES-12 that currently monitors weather systems over central and eastern sections of North America, South America and the Atlantic Basin. [NOAA News] [NASA ] [Editor's Note: the first satellite images obtained from GOES-15 come on the 45th anniversary of the launch of the Applications Technology Satellite, ATS-1, the first geosynchronous satellite launched by NASA to monitor global weather systems. Compare one of the first visible images from ATS-1 made of the eastern Pacific made on 11 December 1966 (courtesy of Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin Madison) with last week's first visible image from GOES-15 (courtesy of NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory. Note the increased resolution that results in a clearer image. EJH]
• NOAA's scientific integrity policy issued -- Last week, the NOAA administrator and undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, Dr.Jane Lubchenco, released a scientific integrity policy for her agency that shows NOAA’s commitment to science. This commitment involves the use of science without distortion, as well as to be transparent and accountable in production and use of science. [NOAA News]

• Review of November and autumn 2011 weather and climate across the US --Preliminary monthly temperature data for November 2011 from across the nation have led scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center to report that both the November and the meteorological autumn (September-November) temperatures across the coterminous United States were more than one Fahrenheit degree above the 20th century (1901-2000) averages. The eastern half of the nation experienced much above average November temperatures, while the western third of the country reported below average temperatures. The nationwide precipitation total across the country was two-tenths of an inch above average during November, but near the long-term average for the autumn season. Many areas across the West, the Upper Midwest and northern New England had below average November precipitation, while other parts of the Midwest, primarily in the mid-Mississippi and Ohio Valleys had much above average precipitation.
  The scientists also noted that through early December, the nation endured a record 12 separate billion-dollar weather/climate disasters in 2011, with an aggregate damage total of approximately $52 billion. [NOAA News]

• Jason-1 satellite marks 10-yr anniversary -- Last week, the NASA/French Space Agency Jason-1 satellite celebrated 10 years in orbit as onboard sensors precisely measured ocean surface topography, extending to a 20-year continuous satellite record of global sea level and monitoring El Niño and La Niña events started by the Topex/Poseidon mission. In 2008, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite was launched to further extend the global ocean monitoring effort. [NASA JPL]
• Link between earthquakes and tropical cyclones detected -- Scientists from the University of Miami and Florida International University claim that earthquakes including recent temblors in Haiti and Taiwan may have been triggered by tropical cyclones (hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the western Pacific basins), primarily because the torrential rains accompanying these tropical cyclones have created landslides and severe erosion, thereby releasing stress load near faults. [University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science]
• Greenland's bedrock rises due to ice loss -- A team of scientists from Ohio State University report that data collected from the Greenland GPS Network of approximately 50 GPS stations positioned along the Greenland coast indicate as much as a 20 mm (0.79 inches) uplift in the bedrock under the Greenland Ice Sheet during a five-month span due to an unusually large amount ice loss during the warm 2010 melting season. [Ohio State Research News]
• 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]

• Regional study released as part of national assessment of carbon storage in ecosystems -- Last Monday, the US Department of Interior held a press conference where the Department's US Geological Survey released the results of the first regional study in a national assessment of how much carbon may be stored in the nation's ecosystems. This study examines the current and projected future distribution of carbon storage in the wetlands, grasslands and forests of the Great Plains region. [US Department of Interior Press Release]

• Study indicates how ocean dead zones cause shrinking habit for high-value fish--A study conducted by a NOAA Fisheries biologist and colleagues indicates expanding "dead zones," or regions of low dissolved oxygen levels in the ocean, caused by changes in climate appear to be affecting the movement of such high-energy and high-value fish such as blue marlins and many other tropical billfish. [NOAA Fisheries Service]
• Shrubbery expands across Quebec as temperatures increase -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center report that their analysis of data collected by instruments onboard NASA's Landsat satellites indicates an expansion of the amount and extent of shrubs and grasses across Canada's northern Quebec Province between 1984 and 2006. These scientists claim that this expansion in shrubbery is due to an increase in temperatures across this region during the last two decades. [NASA GSFC]
• CLIMATE FORECASTS
• First Atlantic hurricane forecast for next season -- Usually during the first week of December, Philip J. Klotzbach, his mentor Professor Bill Gray, and other colleagues at Colorado State University release their initial quantitative forecast of the tropical cyclone activity for the forthcoming hurricane season in the North Atlantic Basin. However, this past week they elected to discontinue this quantitative forecast and provide a qualitative discussion as to what they perceive as the factors that would determine the hurricane activity across the basin in 2012, citing little real-time skill in making forecasts seven months in advance, especially with the apparent breakdown of several previously used long-term relationships. They have found that assessment of next year's tropical cyclone activity depends upon the strength of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation and the phase of ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation). They will make their first quantitative forecast in early April 2012. Details of their assessment appear in the report issued by the Tropical Meteorology Project. [Colorado State University Report] (Note this document is in a 27-page pdf file.)

• Clues to future drought sought from ancient drought evidence -- Researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the University of Nebraska recently reported that new evidence obtained from ancient dry spells and drought across sections of Central America and the Southwest in the US indicates that the future could bring even more serious water shortages to these regions that are currently experiencing some of the worst droughts in decades. They also noted that the ancient Mesoamerican civilizations amplified pre-Columbian droughts in southern Mexico by clearing rainforests for pastures and farmland. [NASA GSFC]

• 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]

• Spacecraft finds planet in habitable zone -- Scientists with NASA's Kepler Mission recently confirmed the presence of a near Earth-size planet nearly 600 light-years away that is orbiting in a "habitable zone" around a central star, or in a region where life-sustaining liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. Although planet, identified as Kepler-22b, has a radius over twice that of Earth, it orbits a star similar to our Sun. The Kepler Mission uses ground-based telescopes and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planet candidates to detect Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone. [NASA JPL]
• Rover detects evidence of ancient water on Mars -- Scientists from Cornell University claim that the Microscopic Imager and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer on NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral that appears to be gypsum near the rim of Endeavour Crater on the Martian surface. They believe that this mineral was deposited by water flowing through underground fractures in the rock. [NASA Science News]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• 12 December 1882...Portland, OR was drenched with 7.66 inches of rain, a record 24-hour total for that location. (12^th-13^th) (The Weather Channel)
• 12 December 1995...A five-day lake-effect snowstorm came to an end at Sault Ste Marie, MI over which time 61.7 inches fell, by far the biggest snowstorm ever. In one 24-hour span, 27.8 inches fell to set the 24-hour record. The snow depth reached 50 inches at one time, tying the record. The storm brought the monthly total to 82.5 inches, the greatest monthly total ever. The city went on to set a new winter season record with well over 200 inches. (Intellicast)
• 13 December 1878...Los Angeles, CA fell to 30 degrees, the lowest temperature at that time for December. (Intellicast)
• 13 December 1915...A heavy snowstorm kicked off the snowiest winter in modern records for western New England. (The Weather Channel)
• 13 December 1962...A severe Florida freeze occurred. Morning low temperatures reached 35 degrees at Miami, 18 degrees at Tampa, and 12 degrees at Jacksonville. The renowned "Coldest December Day" was the coldest December weather of the 20th century and caused millions of dollars damage to crops and foliage. In Georgia, the morning low of 9 degrees below zero at Blairsville established a state record for the month of December. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 14 December 1924...The temperature at Helena, MT plunged 79 degrees in 24 hours, and 88 degrees in 34 hours. The mercury plummeted from 63 degrees above to 25 degrees below zero. At Fairfield, MT, the temperature plunged 84 degrees in just 12 hours, from 63 degrees at noon to 21 degrees below zero at midnight. (David Ludlum)
• 14 December 1987...A powerful storm spread heavy snow from the Southern High Plains to the Middle Mississippi Valley, and produced severe thunderstorms in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Kansas City, MO was blanketed with 10.8 inches of snow, a 24-hour record for December. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 15 December 1582...The Spanish Netherlands, Denmark and Norway adopted the Gregorian calendar.
• 15 December 1945...A record December snowstorm buried Buffalo, NY under 36.6 inches of snow, with unofficial totals south of the city ranging up to 70 inches. Travel was brought to a halt by the storm. (14^th-17^th) (The Weather Channel)
• 16 December 1890...A big snowstorm at Pittsburgh, PA dropped 23.9 inches in 24 hours, the greatest 24-hour snow for that city. (Intellicast)
• 16 December 2000...NASA announced that an ocean was most likely located beneath the icy surface of the Jovian moon Ganymede. (Wikipedia)
• 17 December 1884...A three-week blockade of snow began at Portland, OR. A record December total of 34 inches was received. (David Ludlum)
• 17 December 1930...Greensboro, NC experienced its greatest 24-hour snowfall when 14.3 inches fell. (Intellicast)
• 18 December 1919...The temperature fell to one degree below zero at Central Park in New York City for the earliest sub-zero temperature on record. (Intellicast)
• 18 December 1989...Unseasonably warm weather continued ahead of an arctic cold front. Miami FL equaled their record for December with an afternoon high of 87 degrees. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)

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