WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

8-12 December 2014

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2015 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 19 January 2015. 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

Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2014 Campaign continues -- The series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2014 will continue with a 10-night campaign that starts on 11 December and runs through 20 December. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation (Perseus in the Northern Hemisphere and Cetus in the Southern Hemisphere) with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. [GLOBE at Night]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Melt rate of West Antarctic ice has tripled over last decade -- Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and from the University of California, Irvine recently reported that the melt rate of glaciers across West Antarctica has tripled within the last decade. They based their findings upon their comprehensive analysis of the mass budgets of glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea Embayment constructed from 21 years of observational data collected using four different measurement techniques, including those from NASA and European Space Agency satellites and from NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne campaign. The scientists warn that glaciers in this region appear to be experiencing the latest ice loss and are the most significant of the Antarctic contributors to sea level rise. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Antarctic seawater temperatures are rising -- Using oceanographic records commencing in the 1960s, scientists from the United Kingdom's University of East Angelia and their colleagues from Germany, the United States and Japan report that the temperature of the seawater in the shallow shelf seas of West Antarctica has been increasing. Furthermore, the scientists claim that this warming trend in the seawater has accelerated the melting and sliding of glaciers in the area. In addition, the water around Antarctica has also become less salty, which is consistent with increased ice melting from the Antarctic continent. [University of East Anglia News]
Long-term monitoring of ice cover across the Great Lakes States updated -- The Great Lakes experienced near-record ice cover last winter, as 91 percent of the Lakes were covered with ice during the 2013-14 winter due to a prolonged winter with unseasonably cold air that persisted across eastern North America. [NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory] This near-record ice cover last year runs counter to the long term records of winter freeze-thaw cycles of freshwater lakes that have monitored across North America for as long as 160 years. The citizen scientists 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. Charts of the dates of first-freeze for nine selected lakes in the Great Lakes States are available beginning in 1850 and running through 2012. [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 maintain 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 and last winter showed reversal in recent trends of ice duration. EJH).

CLIMATE FORCING

El Niño events may have a "remote control" upon hurricanes in Northeastern Pacific basin -- Scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the National Taiwan University have discovered a oceanic pathway that appears to transport the heat associated with an El Niño event from the equatorial Pacific to the Northeastern Pacific basin where the heat can fuel intense hurricanes in the basin that can affect western Mexico, the Southwest US and the Hawaiian Islands. This transfer, which involves the large accumulation of heat underneath the ocean surface, has a two or three season delay between the peaks in the El Niño and the hurricane activity. [University of Hawaii at Manoa News]
New worldwide topographic data sets should aid in climate change research -- The US Geological Survey recently announced that improved and detailed global elevation data sets for North and South America, the Pacific Islands and northern Europe have been made available to the public as part of President Obama's commitment to provide assistance for global efforts in strengthening resilience to changing climate. Previously, elevation data for most of Africa had been released. These global topographic data sets, which were developed from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), have a spatial resolution to 30-meters and can be used worldwide to improve environmental monitoring, advance climate change research and promote local decision support. [USGS Newsroom]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Intense coral bleaching conditions observed by satellites in 2014 -- A map of the Earth's tropical and subtropical ocean basins displays the accumulated thermal stress that can lead to coral bleaching for 2014 generated from sea surface temperatures collected by NOAA's polar orbiting satellites. This thermal stress is identified in terms of the maximum coral degree heating weeks or the number of weeks that each location experienced sea surface temperatures that were a degree or more above normal. According to other NOAA sources, the coral reefs in the Florida Keys and around the Hawaiian Islands experienced record or near record bleaching in 2014. [NOAA News] In addition, scientists with NOAA's Coral Reef Watch warn that 2015 could be just as devastating for coral reefs, even if an anticipated El Niño event does not develop. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Regular updates and reviews of climate impact cost estimates urged -- A group of economists and lawyers that includes the director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago urges several improvements be made to the federal government's "Social Cost of Carbon" that is intended to determine the costs and benefits of climate policy by placing a dollar value on the climate damages incurred per ton of carbon dioxide gas released into the atmosphere. This group calls for the imposition of a regular, transparent and peer-reviewed process to ensure the "Social Cost of Carbon" figure is reliable and well-supported by the latest facts. [University of Chicago News]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

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-degree 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)

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