WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

9-13 December 2013

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2014 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 20 January 2014. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Climate News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

"ClimateChangeLive" distance learning adventure webinar scheduled for this week -- The fifth in a series of seven webinars will be available between 7:30 and 9:00 PM this coming Wednesday, 11 December 2013. The series of webinars is designed to raise awareness and understanding of climate change science and is aligned to national science education standards. The collection of science-based, climate education resources and programs have been gathered from at least 19 federal agency and NGO partners that include the US Forest Service, NOAA, the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The fifth webinar scheduled for this Wednesday is "ClimateChangeLIVE Education Resources Highlights – Part 2." Check http://climatechangelive.org/ for registration details.
New iPad App reveals a changing planet -- NASA recently released its "Images of Change" iPad application (or app) that provides users an opportunity to view pairs of images of places around the world where dramatic changes in the local environment have occurred due to human activities, natural disasters and a changing climate. This app makes NASA climate change resources, images and interactive tools more accessible to citizens and decision makers, which represent a key aspect of President Obama's Climate Action Plan. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Student scholarships announced -- The NOAA Office of Education recently announced that scholarships are available to undergraduate and graduate students who are majoring in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences, along with several of the other scientific and technical disciplines that support NOAA's mission and programs. [NOAA Office of Education] These scholarships include:

Educational Partnership Program (EPP) Undergraduate Scholarship: http://www.epp.noaa.gov/ssp_undergrad_page.html. This program provides an opportunity for rising junior students to study disciplines relating to the NOAA's mission. Students attending Minority Serving Institutions are encouraged to apply. The application deadline for the 2014 EPP Undergraduate Scholarship Program is 31 January 2014.
Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Program: http://www.oesd.noaa.gov/Hollings_info.html. This program is designed to: (1). increase undergraduate training in oceanic and atmospheric science, research, technology, and education and foster multidisciplinary training opportunities; (2) increase public understanding and support for stewardship of the ocean and atmosphere and improve environmental literacy; (3.) recruit and prepare students for public service careers with NOAA and other natural resource and science agencies at the federal, state and local levels of government; and (4.) recruit and prepare students for careers as teachers and educators in oceanic and atmospheric science and to improve scientific and environmental education in the United States. The application deadline for the 2014 Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Program is 31 January 2014.
Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship Program: http://fosterscholars.noaa.gov/aboutscholarship.html. This program recognizes outstanding scholarship and encourages independent graduate level research -- particularly by female and minority students -- in oceanography, marine biology and maritime archaeology. The application deadline for the 2014 Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship Program is 12 December 2013.

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Satellites reveal massive rainfall totals across Philippines in 2013 from tropical cyclones ....-- Data collected by NASA's TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) satellite shows rainfall totals across the Philippines between January and early November 2013 that ranged from 16 to 44 inches produced by tropical cyclones that either passed over or came close to this island nation. The data were analyzed and made into an animation by the Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) at the NOAA Goddard Space Flight Center. Super Typhoon Haiyan, Tropical Depression 30W and Typhoon Rumbia crossed the central Philippines resulting in estimated rainfall totals in excess of 43 inches over the island of Leyte. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
Comparing and contrasting Atlantic and Pacific tropical cyclone seasons -- A comparison that included maps of storm tracks was made between the 2013 tropical cyclone seasons in the North Atlantic and the western North Pacific. While the Atlantic hurricane season was relatively quiet, the western Pacific's typhoon seas was active, with several intense typhoons. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

New instrument continues measurements of solar radiation reaching Earth's outer atmosphere -- NOAA's Total solar irradiance Calibration Transfer Experiment (TCTE) is currently measuring the total extra-atmospheric solar irradiance (TSI), or the flux of solar radiation at all wavelengths incident at the top of the Earth's atmosphere. TCTE, which was launched by NASA in November, is currently making measurements and is continuing the TSI record begun by NASA's Nimbus 7 satellite in 1978 and continued since by several subsequent spacecraft. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
Long-term monitoring ice cover on freshwater lakes -- Scientists along with the dedicated members of the public have been monitoring winter freeze-thaw cycles of freshwater lakes in North America for as long as 160 years. These observers have recorded the dates of "ice-on" in autumn and "ice off" in spring, which provides the ice duration for that winter season. The resulting "ice phenology" provides an indication of changes in climate as well as changes in the freshwater ecosystems. The National Snow and Ice Data Center maintains a database with freeze and thaw observations from more than 700 lakes and rivers throughout the Northern Hemisphere. [Earth Gauge] (Note: This reporter has been monitoring the ice cover on Lakes Mendota and Monona in Madison, WI for several decades and has been helping maintaining one of the longer and nearly continuous ice phenology records in North America as the ice record for these lakes started at least 160 years ago. These records are available on the Wisconsin State Climatology Office website. EJH).
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]

CLIMATE FORCING

Reducing brine could increase thinning of glaciers -- Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and colleagues at other academic institutions in California and the Netherlands hypothesize that decreases in the volume of cold brine, or extra salty water within the openings of sea ice could increase the thinning and melting of glaciers that discharge their ice into the ocean. They based their hypothesis on observations of a glacier in East Antarctica using NASA's ICESat-1 and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites and upon ocean numerical modeling. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Flooding from tropical cyclones mainly due to sea level rise and shoreline changes -- Scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Virginia Tech University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory claim that sea level rise and shoreline retreat are the two more certain factors expected to drive an increase in future flood risk from tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms). The researchers considered three physical factors: Tropical cyclone climatology, relative sea level rise and shoreline change. [University of Massachusetts Amherst News]
New Jersey shore could face unprecedented flooding by 2050 -- Geoscientists from Rutgers and Tufts Universities foresee a rise in sea level of approximately 1.5 feet along the New Jersey coast by 2050 and of nearly 3.5 feet by 2100, which would be greater than the projected global average. They warn that by the mid-century, the one-in-10 year flood level at Atlantic City would exceed any flood on record, including that associated with last year's Hurricane Sandy. [Rutgers University Today]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Humans threaten wetland's ability to cope with sea-level rise -- Scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center warn that coastal wetlands may not be able to keep pace with projected sea level rises because humans are building structures in these wetlands that are disrupting the natural mechanisms available to allow these marshes to survive sea level change since the end of the last Ice Age. Dams and seawalls are some of the structures that cause disruption. [Virginia Institute of Marine Science]
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]

COMPARATIVE PLANETOLOGY

Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

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)
5 December 1941...The temperature at Enosburg Falls soared to 72 degrees to establish a state record for Vermont for the month of December. (The Weather Channel)
6 December 1950...Duluth, MN had their greatest 24-hour snowfall when 25.4 inches fell. (Intellicast)
8 December 1938...The temperature at La Mesa, CA soared to 108 degrees to set a U.S. record for the month of December. Los Angeles reached 91 degrees, the only time a 90 degrees reading was reached in December in that city's history. (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
10 December 1919...A 28-inch snowfall for 24 hours at Bend, OR set a new 24-hour snowfall record for the state. (Intellicast)
10 December 1946...The temperature at New York City soared to 70 degrees, the highest ever for a December day. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
10 December 1949...The barometric pressure at Las Vegas, NV reached a record low reading of 29.17 inches (987.8 millibars). (The Weather Channel)
10 December 1995...Intense lake effect snow squalls buried Buffalo, NY under 37.9 inches in 24 hours, the city's greatest 24-hour snowfall and biggest snowstorm ever. Watertown, NY recorded 39 inches in just 12 hours and had 4 inches of snow an hour each hour for six consecutive hours. (Intellicast)
11 December 1932...Very cold weather prevailed along the West Coast. San Francisco received 0.8 inch of snow, and at the airport the temperature dipped to 20 degrees. At Sacramento, CA, the mercury dipped to 17 degrees to establish an all-time record low for that location. Morning lows were below freezing from the 9^th to the 15^th at Sacramento, and the high on the 11^th was just 34 degrees. The cold wave dealt severe damage to truck crops and orange groves in the Sacramento Valley. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
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)

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