WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

7-11 December 2015

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2016 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 18 January 2016. 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

United Nations climate change conference continues in Paris -- The 2015 Paris Climate Conference, officially known as COP21 (for the 21st Conference of Parties), continues through this upcoming Friday, 11 December. This conference, which was to attract 50,000 participants from numerous nations, is intended to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 Celsius degrees. [COP21 Paris]
Many media sources are providing ongoing commentaries. Among these sources are Andrew Revkin'sDot.Earth Blog.
Environmental Literacy Grants funding opportunity from NOAA are now available for K-12 STEM programs -- NOAA's Office of Education has issued a competitive funding opportunity for education projects designed to strengthen the environmental literacy of K-12 students and the public in an effort to enable informed decision-making necessary for community resilience to extreme weather events and other environmental hazards. The deadline for applications for this Environmental Literacy Grants (ELG) funding opportunity is 8 February 2016. [NOAA Office of Education]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2015 Campaign continues -- The eleventh in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2015 will continue with a 10-night campaign running through 11 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 Grus 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. The 2016 campaign will commence starting 1 January and running through 10 January 2016. [GLOBE at Night]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Additional summaries of 2015 hurricane seasons in North Atlantic and the eastern and central North Pacific basins -- After the end of the official 2015 hurricane season in the North Atlantic, eastern North Pacific and central North Pacific basins last Monday (30 November 2015), NOAA scientists issued their assessment of this hurricane season in all three basins. They noted less than average activity in the Atlantic, but record activity in the eastern and central Pacific. They credited the presence of a strong El Niño event for the differences in the activity between the Atlantic and Pacific basins. [NOAA News]
The forecast team at Colorado State University released their summary of the tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic basin during 2015 along with a verification of their long-range seasonal and two-week forecasts. [Tropical Meteorological Project]
NASA scientists produced global maps of tropical cyclone tracks across all ocean basins across the globe for 2015. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Attention is also directed to the fact sheet assembled by the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University that highlights many of the tropical cyclone records set across all the major ocean basins in the Northern Hemisphere in 2015. One of these records was the development of 30 major tropical cyclones of category 3 or higher status on the Saffir-Simpson Scale in the hemisphere during the year. NOTE: ACE is Accumulated Cyclone Energy, a numerical index that expresses the activity and destructive potential of individual tropical cyclones and entire tropical cyclone seasons. [Tropical Meteorology Project]
Orbiting solar observatory celebrates 20 years of collecting space weather data -- The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (or SOHO), a joint ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA mission, was launched 20 years ago this past week to study the Sun and its influence to the edges of the solar system. The SOHO spacecraft is in orbit around the Sun–Earth L1 Lagrange point, the point of gravitational balance between the Earth and the Sun at a distance of approximately 148 million km (92 million miles) from the Sun. In addition to revolutionizing this field of heliophysics , this spacecraft remains the main source of near-real-time solar data for space weather prediction. [NASA News]
A narrative describes the history of NASA's solar missions. [NASA History]
Highlighting citizen scientists participating in NOAA's Old Weather project -- Four volunteer citizen scientists who are participating in NOAA's Old Weather project were interviewed about their work in assisting NOAA transcribe and digitize weather data from 19th century ship logs. This six-year citizen scientist program with nearly 21,000 volunteers is designed to construct data sets in a format that would be used by climate scientists to assess changing climate over the last two centuries. Currently, over 7.5 million weather observations have been transcribed. [NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research News]
One of the results of this project is the development of a website on "Old Weather Whaling" at the New Bedford (MA) Whaling Museum.
Analysis of catastrophic flooding in southern India made using satellite-derived rainfall data -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have employed a computer analysis scheme called Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) to generate a map of the distribution of estimated accumulated rainfall across southeastern India between 29 November and 2 December that resulted in flooding and the deaths of 188 people. IMERG assimilates data collected from sensors onboard 12 orbiting satellites to produce continuously updated global maps of rainfall at half hourly intervals. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Increases in ciguatera poisoning seafood predicted with rising ocean temperatures -- Scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science recently reported that increased frequencies in cases of ciguatera, the most common form of algal-induced seafood poisoning caused by consuming contaminated reef fish, are possible due to projected increases in global ocean temperature due to changing climate. With warmer waters, ciguatera-causing algae from the Caribbean Sea appear to be spreading northward into the the Gulf of Mexico and the along the US southeast Atlantic. The contaminated tropical marine reef fish especially along would include grouper, snapper and barracuda. This new ecological forecast represents part of NOAA efforts to build "climate-smart" nation. [NOAA News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Large loss of Alaska permafrost predicted by end of 21st century -- Based upon their analysis of the current distribution of near-surface permafrost across Alaska, US Geological Survey scientists have projected that the permafrost currently underlying 38 percent of boreal and arctic sections of the 49th State would dwindle to between 16 to 24 percent by the year 2100 because of anticipated warming associated with climate change under widely accepted climate scenarios. The team used statistically modeled maps drawn from satellite-derived data and other sources to ascertain the current distribution. [USGS Newsroom]
Canadian national seasonal outlook issued -- Forecasters with Environment Canada issued their outlooks for temperature and precipitation across Canada for December 2015 through February 2016, which represents meteorological winter. The temperature outlook indicates that essentially all of Canada could experience above normal (1981-2010) temperatures for these three months. However, sections of northeastern Canada, including southern Baffin Island could see average or below average temperatures.
The Canadian precipitation outlook for the 2015-16 winter season indicates that above average precipitation was to be anticipated across many areas scattered across western, northern and eastern Canada. Only a few areas in Ontario near Lake Superior and in eastern Canada could have below average precipitation. Elsewhere, near-average winter precipitation was expected.
[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

New research tool examines how climate change could affect global hunger vulnerability -- The World Food Programme, the food assistance branch of the United Nations, launched an online research tool called "The Food Insecurity and Climate Change Vulnerability map" at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) that examines how global climate change through 2080 may impact food supply and increase hunger vulnerability across the globe. [World Food Programme News]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

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)

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