WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

5-9 January 2015

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

Welcome climate science educators to the annual AMS meeting -- The 95th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) is being held this week (4 - 9 January) in Phoenix, AZ. The theme for this year's AMS meeting is "Fulfilling the Vision of Weather, Water, and Climate Information for Every Need, Time, and Place." One of the numerous symposia and conferences that will be conducted at the meeting is the 24th Symposium on Education, where educators from kindergarten through university levels will be attending workshops or giving presentations on weather, ocean, climate and space science education issues.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Satellite to be launched to monitor soil moisture - Late this upcoming month NASA will launch its Soil Moisture Mapping satellite (SMAP) that is designed to track the amount of water in the soil. The spacecraft will have a radar unit, a radiometer to monitor microwave radiation emitted from water in the soil and a 19.7-foot diameter rotating mesh antenna, the largest ever deployed in space. The data obtained from this satellite is intended to help scientists forecast floods, drought, landslides and crop yield. [NOAA News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Importance of tropical forests and carbon dioxide assessed -- Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and their colleagues recently reported that that tropical forests may be absorbing far more atmospheric carbon dioxide than previously thought. The researchers claim that these tropical forests absorb 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than is absorbed by boreal forests across Alaska, Canada and Siberia. Total global absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which has been increasing due to human activity, Is estimated to be 2.5 billion tons. [NASA Earth Science News Team]
Eruption of undersea volcano monitored from space -- Two images made early last week from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite show the development of a plume of volcanic ash from the eruption of an underwater volcano off Hunga Ha'apai, an island in the Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc in the western South Pacific Ocean. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Canadian national seasonal outlook issued -- Forecasters with Environment Canada issued their outlooks for temperature and precipitation across Canada for the first three months of 2015, which represent the remainder of meteorological winter (January and February) and the first month of meteorological spring (March). Their temperature outlook indicates that a large section of eastern Canada extending across Ontario and Quebec could experience below normal (1981-2010) temperatures for these three months. On the other hand, sections western Canada including British Columbia along with the Yukon and Northwest Territories could have above average winter and early spring temperatures. Elsewhere, near normal temperatures were to be expected for the next three months.
The Canadian precipitation outlook for January through March 2015 indicates that most of the Canadian Arctic including the Nunavut Territory and northern Quebec could experience below average precipitation. Conversely, above normal precipitation was projected for a large area extending across most of the Prairie Provinces along with sections of Ontario around the eastern Great Lakes and coastal sections of Atlantic Canada.
[Note for comparisons and continuity with the three-month seasonal outlooks of temperature and precipitation generated for the continental United States and Alaska by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, one would need to use Environment Canada's probabilistic forecasts for temperature and precipitation.]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

American cities emit more light than their German counterparts -- In a study conducted by a scientist at the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) and his colleagues, American cities have been found to emit several more times the visible illumination per capita than corresponding German cities. In addition, the gap between the cities in the two nations widened with population, with the light emitted per capita increasing with increased size for US cities, while decreasing in size for German cities. Regional differences were also noted in Germany. Data for this project were collected from satellites operated by the European Space Agency and NOAA. [GFZ Helmholtz Centre Potsdam]

COMPARATIVE PLANETOLOGY

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

Historical Events:

5 January 1904...Bitterly cold air gripped the northeastern U.S. Morning lows of 42 degrees below zero at Smethport, PA and 34 degrees below zero at River Vale, NJ established state records for both the Keystone and Garden States. (The Weather Channel)
5 January 1913...The temperature at the east portal to Strawberry Tunnel reached 50 degrees below zero to tie the Utah state record low established at Woodruff on 6 February 1899. (David Ludlum) This record was later smashed in February 1985 when the temperature at Peter's Sink fell to 69 degrees below zero. (NCDC)
5 January 1974...The temperature at Vanda Station on the Scott Coast, Antarctica reached 59 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica. (The Weather Doctor)
5 January 1999...The temperature fell to 36 degrees below zero at Congerville in central Illinois to set a new record low temperature for the state. (NCDC)
7 January 1913...Tucson, AZ set its all-time record low temperature with a frigid six degrees above zero. (NWS)
7 January 1971...The temperature at Hawley Lake, located southeast of McNary, AZ, plunged to 40 degrees below zero to establish a state record low temperature for the Grand Canyon State. (The Weather Channel)
7 January 1989...Fargo, ND was in the middle of a 3-day snowstorm over which time 24.4 inches of snow fell on the city -- the greatest single storm total ever for the location. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
7 January 1992...A rare January thunderstorm rumbled over Sioux Falls, SD. This was the first January thunderstorm recorded in the city since 1939. Meanwhile, thunderstorms produced six tornadoes (one F2 and five F1) near Grand Island, NE -- the first tornadoes ever recorded in Nebraska during January. (Intellicast)
7 January 1996...The "blizzard of '96" clobbered a huge area from the Ohio Valley to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast with record snows. A new snowfall record for New Jersey was set when 35 inches were measured at White House. (Intellicast)
7-8 January 1966...Torrential rain fell at Foc Foc on the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, with 45 inches falling in 12 hours and 72 inches falling in 24 hours, both world precipitation records.
8 January 1859...This is the only day New York City's temperature stayed below zero the entire day. (Intellicast)
8 January 1923...The all-time January record high temperature reading was reached at Los Angeles when the mercury climbed to 90 degrees. (Intellicast)
8 January 1937...The record low temperature for the state of Nevada was set at San Jacinto when the temperature dropped to 50 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
9 January 1875...The temperature at Cheyenne, WY dipped to an all-time record low reading of 38 degrees below zero. (The Weather Channel)
9 January 1899...The temperature at Norway House, Manitoba: 1899 plummeted to 63 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), marking the coldest day ever recorded in Manitoba. (The Weather Doctor)
9 January 1954...The temperature reading taken during the British North Greenland Expedition at near Northice, Greenland was 87 degrees below zero, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Greenland. (The Weather Doctor)
9 January 1992...An unbelievable 14 consecutive days of cloudy skies finally ended at Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. Every single weather observation during this time period showed overcast conditions -- 350 consecutive hours of cloudy skies! There was not even a "mostly cloudy" -- all observations were completely cloudy. During this cloudy period, it was very mild. The average temperature from 26 December to 8 January was 19 degrees above normal. (Intellicast)
10 January 1800...Savannah, GA received a foot and a half of snow, and ten inches blanketed Charleston, SC. It was the heaviest snowfall of record for the immediate Coastal Plain of the southeastern U.S. (David Ludlum)
10 January 1949...Snow was reported at San Diego, CA for the first and only time since 1882. Snow was noted even on some of the beaches in parts of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
10 January 1800...Savannah, GA received a foot and a half of snow, and ten inches blanketed Charleston, SC. It was the heaviest snowfall of record for the immediate Coastal Plain of the southeastern U.S. (David Ludlum)
10 January 1949...Snow was reported at San Diego, CA for the first and only time since 1882. Snow was noted even on some of the beaches in parts of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
11 January 1911...The temperature at Fort Vermilion, Alberta fell to 78 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), which is Alberta's lowest temperature on record. (Weather Doctor).
11 January 1942...Rhode Island's record low temperature of 23 degrees below zero was set at Kingston. (Intellicast)
11 January 2002...The temperature at the Russian research Vostok Station (elevation 11,444 feet above sea level) reached 10 degrees, the all-time high temperature record for this station that is the site of the world's all-time record low temperature of 129 degrees below zero set on 21 July 1983. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)

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