WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

DataStreme ECS WEEK FIVE: 29 September-3 October 2014

ITEMS OF INTEREST

End of the growing season -- If you live in the northern portion of the country, the growing season may have already ended as cold air masses have moved southeastward from Canada. Check the interactive maps produced by the Midwestern Regional Climate Center's Vegetation Program that show the first occurrence of 28-degree and 32-degree Fahrenheit temperature readings of this fall across the 48 coterminous United States. (Use the "Current Season Freezes" in the "Shaded Maps Menu" on left to select the desired map.) Comparison can be made with the maps showing the median dates of occurrence of the first 32-degree (or 28-degree) Fahrenheit temperatures (in the appropriate "Climatologies" sections) across the lower 48 states. (The median date means that half of the occurrences of a 32-degree reading over the 30-year normal occur prior to this date, while the other half occur after this date.) Following first frost, some delightful days should occur during October and early November in what is often called "Indian Summer."
Start of a new water year -- On Wednesday, 1 October 2014, the new water year of 2015 will begin. As defined by the US Geological Survey and used by hydrologists in reports dealing with surface water supply, the "water year" is defined as the 12 months commencing on 1 October of any given year and ends on 30 September of the following year. The water year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends, such that the 2015 water year runs through 30 September 2015.
High-quality maps of October temperature and precipitation normals across US available -- The PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University's website has prepared high-resolution maps depicting the normal maximum, minimum and precipitation totals for October across the 48 coterminous United States for the current 1981-2010 climate normals interval. These maps, with a 800-meter resolution, were produced using the PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) climate mapping system.
October weather calendar for a city near you -- The Midwestern Regional Climate Center maintains an interactive website that permits the public to produce a ready to print weather calendar for any given month of the year, such as October, at any of approximately 270 weather stations around the nation. (These stations are NOAA's ThreadEx stations.) The entries for each day of the month includes: Normal maximum temperature, normal minimum temperature, normal daily heating and cooling degree days, normal daily precipitation, record maximum temperature, record minimum temperature, and record daily precipitation; the current normals for 1981-2010.
Monitoring the drought -- During this past summer, western sections of the nation continued to experience major drought. See how the drought is monitored and assessed by reading this week's Supplemental Information…In Greater Depth.

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Arctic sea ice reaches its summer minimum extent, at sixth smallest on record -- Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center recently announced that on Wednesday, 17 September 2014, the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean reached its smallest extent of the year, with a size of approximately 1.94 million square miles (5.02 million square kilometers). This size was the sixth smallest extent in the record begun in 1789 with the start of extensive satellite surveillance [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Comparison is also invited between the long-term decline in annual sea ice coverage of the Arctic in the Northern Hemisphere and the short-term increases in the sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Alaska's commercial and subsistence fisheries threatened by increasing ocean acidification -- A study conducted by scientists from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the University of Alaska and Woods Hole Oceanic Institution has found that ocean acidification appears to be responsible for changing ocean waters deemed vital to Alaska's fisheries, an industry that generates more than $5 billion in annual revenue and supports more than 100,000 jobs. The scientists warn that many of the state's marine fisheries are expected to face significant stress as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to climb as projected. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CLIMATE MODELLING EFFORTS

Arctic carbon models lack consensus due to few data -- A new study conducted as part of NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) reveals that more measurements are needed to determine how much carbon is being emitted into the atmosphere from the thawing of Arctic soils and permafrost due to increasing global temperatures. A researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory found much disagreement in the output statistics generated by 40 different computer models of the amount and flow of carbon in the Alaskan Arctic and boreal ecosystems, a consequence of insufficient observational data from the region. Model consensus would be needed to help assess the future effects of changing climate in the Arctic, a region hard hit by increased global temperatures. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]

CLIMATE FORCING

GPS and satellites monitor uplift of western US due to drought -- Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recently described a technique in which GPS units are used to measure drought-induced uplift of land across the western United States caused by the depletion of ground and surface water. These measurements correspond to measurements made by NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Key reaction for producing "atmosphere's detergent" observed -- A team of chemistry researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have observed a rapid chemical reaction in a laboratory that creates hydroxyl radicals that are highly reactive molecules often called the "atmosphere's detergent," as they appear to help break down pollutants emitted by fossil fuel burning. The team found that an important intermediate molecule was generated during the chemical reaction that was then transformed into the hydroxyl radicals, which consist of hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are bonded together. [University of Pennsylvania News]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Tree rings used to reconstruct 600-year marine environment of California coast -- An oceanographer at the University of South Carolina and his colleagues used tree rings as a proxy indicator to reconstruct approximately 600 years of history of the marine environment off the California coast. Their focus was on the cold California Current and the effects of upwelling, which helps bring cold, nutrient-rich bottom water to the surface to make the waters off the West Coast a major area for fisheries. They found that slow tree growth from the tree ring analysis corresponded to high fish populations and vice versa. Large, temporary drops in fish populations have occurred naturally in the past, but human activities might be making those events more frequent in the future. [University of South Carolina]
Fire severity on Colorado's Front Range has not changed drastically over last four centuries -- Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and California's Humboldt State University recently reported that contrary to popular opinion, the intensity of wildfires along Colorado's Front Range has not drastically increased since the 1600s. The based their conclusions on the reconstruction of the timing and severity of past wildfires along the Front Range. [University of Colorado Boulder News]
Global sea levels tracked over last five ice ages -- Using sediment cores obtained from the Red Sea, an international team of researchers has reconstructed a 500,000-year long time series of global sea levels that shows the variability of the sea level during the last five major ice age cycles. At the end of these cycles, the decay of ice on land appears to have caused global sea levels to rise at rates approaching 5.5 meters per century. The researchers also found more than 100 smaller events in which sea level rose in between the five major cycles. [University of Southampton News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Summit on climate leadership to be held for leaders of higher education institutions -- The three-day 2014 Presidential Summit on Climate Leadership will be held this coming week beginning on Wednesday (1 October) in Boston, MA. College and university presidents and sustainability staff will discuss campus climate action and sustainability initiatives, as well as ways of addressing climate challenges. [NOAA Climate.gov]
Federal Climate Science Centers and Native American tribes collaborate on climate change issues -- A US Geological Survey circular describes the collaboration between the US Department of Interior's eight Climate Science Centers, partner agencies and 68 Native American tribes on minimizing and adapting to potential harmful effects of climate change on human society and surrounding ecosystems. [USGS Newsroom]

COMPARITIVE PLANETOLOGY

MAVEN spacecraft successfully placed in orbit of Mars -- At the start of last week, the NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft was successfully inserted into an orbit around Mars after a 10-month journey from Earth. This spacecraft, the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of the Red Planet, is designed to study how the history of the Martian atmosphere and how that planet's climate has changed over time, including how that changing climate would have influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet." [NASA ] [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Keeping your cool!

In order to survive, humans need to maintain a nearly constant internal core temperature that is within several degrees of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Your internal temperature depends upon an energy balance involving the gain and loss of energy from radiation (incoming solar versus incoming and outgoing infrared radiation), sensible heat transfer (conduction and convection), latent heat of evaporation (respiration and perspiration) and the body's metabolic rate. This heat transfer depends upon the differences between skin temperature and the ambient air temperature of the surroundings. In addition, wind and atmospheric humidity can affect the rate of sensible and latent heat transfer. Problems arise when either too much or too little heat flows to or from the body, yielding hypothermia and hyperthermia (heat stress) conditions, respectively.

When the air temperature increases, heat flow from the body is often reduced. Heat flow can be increased to maintain stable temperatures involuntarily by thermoregulatory processes such as increased perspiration (sweating) and dilation of the blood vessels. Humans can also act to prevent hyperthermia by selecting lightweight and light colored clothes, as well as seeking of shade and well ventilated locations. Unfortunately, high atmospheric humidity that often accompanies high summer temperatures also reduces body heat loss since evaporative cooling by perspiration is suppressed. During the summer, the National Weather Service alerts the public of potentially dangerous combinations of high air temperature and atmospheric humidity levels by calculating the Heat Index.

Statistics kept by the National Weather Service reveals that heat (along with high humidity) is responsible for the greatest number of weather-related deaths across the nation during the 10-year period (2001-2010), with 115 fatalities occurring per year. By comparison, 116 fatalities per annum are caused by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms), 56 deaths per year are associated from tornadoes and 25 deaths annually caused by the cold (low temperatures). (Note: The large number of fatalities associated with the hurricanes of 2005, which totaled 1016 deaths in the US due primarily to Hurricane Katrina, has inflated the annual averages associated with tropical cyclones.) Furthermore, concern has been raised that during this century, more frequent and more severe heat waves due to global climate change could become more common, leading to a greater risk of hyperthermia and, ultimately, to higher morbidity rates.

Concept of the Week: Questions

(Each week you will be asked to respond to two questions relating to that week's Concept of the Week topic. Place your responses on the Chapter Progress Response Form provided in the Study Guide.)

The heat index is a function of air temperature and [(atmospheric humidity),(wind speed),(sunshine levels)].
The annual number of fatalities across the nation in the last ten years due to heat stress is approximately [(15),(60),(120)].

Historical Events:

30 September 1992...Fairbanks, AK averaged a frigid 31.7 degrees for the month, 13.2 degrees below normal and a record. Beginning on the 9^th, a record low was set for every day of the month. The temperature plunged to 3 degrees on the 30^th, the lowest ever for September. Snowfall for the month totaled 24.4 inches, more than three times the previous record. The snows never melted. Plant foliage still green, was frozen into place and week long power outages occurred as whole trees bent over onto power lines in the heavy wet snow. (Intellicast)
1 October 2006...Wichita, KS recorded its hottest October day ever on the 1st with a 97-degree high temperature. (The Weather Doctor)
2 October 1858...The only tropical cyclone known to produce hurricane-force (estimated) winds on the California coast hit near San Diego, CA. Damage to property is considerable. (The Weather Doctor)
2 October 1980...The temperature at Blue Canyon, CA soared to 88 degrees, an October record for that location. (The Weather Channel)
3 October 1912...The longest dry spell of record in the U.S. commenced as Bagdad, CA went 767 days without rain, ending on 9 November 1914. (David Ludlum)
4 October 1969...Denver, CO received 9.6 inches of snow. October of that year proved to be the coldest and snowiest of record for Denver, with a total snowfall for the month of 31.2 inches. (Weather Channel)
4-7 October 1972...Remnants of Hurricane Joanne brought heavy rain and flooding to much of Arizona. It was the first documented tropical storm to reach the state with its cyclonic circulation intact. Severe flooding occurred in the Clifton, Duncan and Safford areas. (The Weather Doctor)
4 October 1976...The mean wind speed reached 88.5 mph at Melfort, Saskatchewan, the province's highest ever sustained wind. (The Weather Doctor)
4 October 1987...A rapidly deepening coastal storm dumped record snows across eastern New York State and western New England. Grafton, NY was buried under 22 inches of snow, North Springfield, VT had 21 inches and Pownal, VT recorded 18 inches. Most of the snow occurred at higher elevations but even Albany, NY received 6 inches, their earliest measurable snow in 117 years of records. Damage to trees was extensive as many trees were still in full leaf. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
In California, high temperatures of 100 degrees at San Francisco, and 108 degrees at Los Angeles and Santa Maria, were October records. San Luis Obispo was the hot spot in the nation with an afternoon high of 111 degrees. (The National Weather Summary).
4 October 1998...As many as 27 tornadoes touched down across Oklahoma, establishing the national record for tornadoes in any state on a single October day. (The Weather Doctor)
4 October 2005...The Minneapolis-St. Paul (MN) International Airport received 4.61 inches, breaking the local daily rainfall record for October. North of the Twin Cities, weather spotters reported nine inches of rain in the town of Spencer Brook. (The Weather Doctor) 5 October 1917...The temperature at Sentinel, AZ soared to 116 degrees to establish an October record for the nation. (The Weather Channel)
5 October 1972...Heavy rains, mostly the remnants of Tropical Storm Joanne, fell across much of Arizona. It was believed to be the first time in Arizona weather history that a tropical storm entered the state with its circulation still intact. The center was over Flagstaff early on the 7th. (3rd-7th) (The Weather Channel)
5 October 1984...The temperature at Honolulu, HI hit 94 degrees to establish the all-time record high for that city. (Intellicast)
5 October 1987...In California, afternoon high temperatures of 102 degrees in Downtown San Francisco, and 104 degrees at Monterey, established all-time records. The high of 101 degrees at San Jose was a record for October. Sacramento tied their record for October for the third time in the month, with a reading of 102 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)

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