WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

8-12 January 2018

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Climate science educators at the annual AMS meeting -- The 98th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) is being held this week (7 - 11 January) in Austin, TX. The theme for this year's AMS meeting is "Transforming Communication in the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise Focusing on Challenges Facing Our Sciences," stressing the role that fundamental communication plays as a dynamic, powerful, and essential part of the weather, climate, and water enterprise. One of the numerous symposia and conferences that will be conducted at the meeting is the 27th 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.
A well-known meteorologist gives his take on conversations about the arctic blast gripping the nation -- Professor Marshall Shepherd of the University of Georgia, the host of the Weather Channel's Wx Geeks show and a past president of the American Meteorological Society, recently wrote an insightful article entitled "Three Observations About Conversations On The Extreme Cold Weather This Week," in which he describes the arctic air mass that enveloped most of the eastern half of the nation during the Christmas week and discusses how this extreme weather event may or may not be related to climate change. [Forbes] (Editor's note: Even though this article is becoming dated, it still is a good read for anyone who is interested in the occurrence of extreme weather events and the relationship with changing climate.EJH
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2018 Campaign is underway -- The first in the series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2018 will continue through Monday, 15 January. 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 (in the Northern Hemisphere Orion for latitudes less than 30 degrees and Tarus for latitudes greater than 40 degrees; in the Southern Hemisphere Orion for latitudes less than 30 degrees and Canis Major for latitudes greater than 40 degrees) 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 second series in the 2018 campaign is scheduled for 5-15 February 2018. [GLOBE at Night]
Last week's "bombogenesis" explained -- Many people across the eastern half of the nation experienced wintry weather of historic proportions that included record snowfall, strong winds, coastal flooding from storm surge, record low air temperatures and brutal wind chills. Meteorologists were explaining the ferocity of this storm as being associated with "bombogenesis." The term bombogenesis refers to a midlatitude cyclone or storm that rapidly intensifies over a 24-hour period, with the central pressure dropping by at least 24 millibars. (A millibar measures atmospheric pressure.) A fall in the central pressure of approximately 50 mb was observed in this "bomb cyclone." The storm was also classified as a "nor'easter," a midlatitude storm that typically travels toward the northeast along the East Coast, with winds preceding the storm's center that are from the northeast. [NOAA News]
An enhanced image was generated last Thursday from data collected by NOAA's GOES-East (also known as GOES-16) satellite that shows the clouds associated with the storm circulating in a relatively tight counterclockwise spiral along the Middle Atlantic Coast. At the time when the image was made, the center of the storm was located several hundred miles offshore of the Del-Mar-Va Peninsula. In addition to the clouds, a band of snow that fell in association with the storm can be seen stretched across the Southeast, running from southeastern Georgia northeastward through the coastal sections of the Carolinas. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
Several images of the storm were also made by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite and the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

North America experienced large temperature contrasts during last week of 2017 -- A map of the North American continent featuring the land surface temperature anomalies averaged over the week running from 26 December 2017 to 2 January 2018 reveals large temperature contrasts in the surface temperatures measured by satellites (not air temperatures recorded by surface observation stations). The land surface temperature anomalies represent the differences in the land surface temperature data obtained from the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite averaged for this eight-day period and the 2001–2010 average temperature for the same period. With the exception of slightly higher than average temperatures in eastern Canada (centered on Labrador), most of the continent to the east of the Continental Divide, or the spine of the Rockies, experienced below average temperatures during that week. A broad area of the Plains and the Midwest had temperature departures of at least 15 Celsius degrees below the 10-year average. In contrast, the region to the west of the Rockies exhibited positive temperature anomalies, or warmer than average conditions, with areas in the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada have temperature anomalies that exceeded 15 Celsius degrees. Most of Alaska also had positive temperature anomalies. These large contrasts are the result of a highly amplified pattern in the upper tropospheric wind flow that can be better seen on a hemispheric perspective by a corresponding global anomaly chart. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Review of Canada's top ten weather stories in 2017 -- The Canadian Government's Environment and Climate Change Canada recently released a list of what it considered the top ten weather events across Canada during the calendar year of 2017. Many of the stories focused on the changing climate that is currently across Canada. The top story was the numerous wildfires that spread across British Columbia, which resulted in that province's longest and most destructive wildfire season. Other stories included dry and hot conditions in the Canadian West and spring flooding in Quebec and Ontario. [Environment and Climate Change Canada]

CLIMATE MONITORING

"A global thermometer" is used to track temperature extremes, droughts and melting ice -- A team of scientists from Oregon State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Montana and the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service have used land surface maximum temperature data collected from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite between 2003 and 2014 as a "global thermometer" proxy to track droughts and melting ice. They found that bulk spikes in global maximum surface radiative temperatures occurring in the tropical forests of Africa and South America and across much of Europe and Asia in 2010 and in Greenland in 2012 coincided with disruptions in the ecosystem that affected millions of people with severe droughts in the tropics and heat waves across large areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Maximum temperature extremes were also associated with widespread melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [Oregon State University News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Arctic clouds found to be highly sensitive to air pollution -- Scientists from the University of Utah have reported that air pollution has had dramatic effects on Arctic cloud forms, much more so than forest fires. Arctic air masses are highly sensitive to particulate matter from pollution sources elsewhere across the Northern Hemisphere that tends to get trapped by thermal inversion layers in polar latitudes. This particulate matter may spur Arctic cloud formation, which can result in a further warming of the Arctic. Haze is a telltale sign of the particulate matter. [University of Utah News]
A "methane puzzle" is solved -- With concentrations of the greenhouse gas methane in the atmosphere have been rapidly rising since 2006, several estimates of emission rates have been provided to explain the reason for this rise; one estimate involves emissions from the oil and gas industry, while another involves microbial production in wet tropical environments. However, each of these factors were as large as the increase in methane, which led to the puzzle. A scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and colleagues have used data obtained from the MODIS sensors on NASA satellites to solve the puzzle, proposing that the areas burned by wildfires across the globe annually have decreased over the last decade. Using this information, the researchers were able to correctly balance the global methane budget. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]
Call made for comprehensive research program focusing on Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current System -- A team of researchers recently prepared a report issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that calls for an international, multi-institutional comprehensive campaign of research, observation, and analysis activities designed to help improve understanding and prediction of the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current System (LCS). This LCS is a water current in the Gulf that consists of the Loop Current) and the Loop Current Eddies. Hurricane intensity, offshore safety, harmful algal blooms, oil spill response, the entire Gulf food chain, shallow water nutrient supply, the fishing industry, tourism, and the Gulf Coast economy are affected by the LCS. [National Academies News]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

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Evidence of rapid changes in the Arctic is found -- A research team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of South Carolina and the University of Washington report discovering that climate change is rapidly causing coastal changes in the Arctic that could have significant impacts on Arctic food webs and animal populations. They discovered levels of radium-228 in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole have almost doubled over the last decade. Apparently, diminishing sea ice near the Arctic coast due to rising temperatures leaves more open water near the coast for winds to create waves, which stir up sediments on shallow continental shelves. Radium and other chemicals that are carried up to the surface and swept away into the open ocean by currents such as the Transpolar Drift. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution News]

COMPARATIVE PLANETOLOGY

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PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Ancient shipwrecks and tree rings provide a treasure trove of climate data -- A team of dendrochronologists from Arizona, Idaho and Spain have found that an interesting link existing between ancient shipwrecks in the Caribbean between 1495 and 1825 attributed to hurricanes and tree rings from pines on Florida's Big Pine Key has permitted them to reconstruct an improved history of hurricanes in the Caribbean over the last 500 years. [Earther Science]
Reconstructing past ocean temperatures with a new "thermometer" -- Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and colleagues at institutions in Switzerland and Japan have devised a new method for measuring the average temperature of the entire world's ocean from the surface downward by determining the ratio of noble gases in the atmosphere, which have been found to be in direct relation to the ocean's temperature. By measuring how the values of the noble gases argon, krypton, and xenon in air bubbles captured inside ice in Antarctica change, they can determine the changes in the average temperature of the entire world's ocean over time. Ice cores have been extracted from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that span nearly 100,000 years. As the oceans warm, krypton and xenon are released into the atmosphere in known quantities; the ratio of these gases in the atmosphere therefore allows for the calculation of average global ocean temperature. The study determined that the average global ocean temperature at the peak of the most recent ice age was 33.6 degrees Fahrenheit, while the modern ocean's average temperature has been determined to be 38.3 degrees F. [Scripps Institution of Oceanography News]

CLIMATE EDUCATION

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CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

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CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

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Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Historical Events:

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)
8 January 1966...The greatest 24-hour rainfall associated with a tropical cyclone occurred at La Reunion Island when Tropical Cyclone Denise produced 72.0 inches of rain. The storm also set the world's 12-hour rainfall record with an even 45 inches. (National Weather Service files)
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 Northice, Greenland was 87 degrees below zero, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Greenland and in the Western Hemisphere. (The Weather Doctor) (National Weather Service files)
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 1958...The world record for a 48-hour rainfall amount was set at Aurere, La Reunion, with 97.10 inches. This record has been broken with a rainfall of 98.15 inches at Cherrapunji, India in June 1995. (National Weather Service files)
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)
12 January 1912...The morning low temperature of 47 degrees below zero at Washta, IA established a state record for the Hawkeye State. (The Weather Channel) (This record was tied in February 1996 at Elkader).
12 January 1981...The temperature fell to 35 degrees below zero at Chester, MA, setting an all-time record low temperature for the Bay State. (NCDC)
12 January 1985...A record "snowstorm of the century" struck portions of western and south central Texas. The palm trees of San Antonio were blanketed with up to thirteen and a half inches of snow, more snow than was ever previously received in an entire winter season. Del Rio measured 5.5 inches, which was also their most snow ever in 24 hours as well as for any season. (Weather Channel) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
13 January 1862...The "Noachian flood of California" created a vast sea in the Sacramento Valley. San Francisco had a January rainfall total of 24.36 inches. (Intellicast)
13 January 1871...The mercury plunged to 41 degrees Fahrenheit at Key West, FL, the lowest reading ever at this farthest south location in the contiguous US. The mark was tied on 12 January 1993. (The Weather Doctor)
13 January 1888...The mercury plunged to 65 degrees below zero at Fort Keogh, located near Miles City, MT. The reading stood as the all-time lowest temperature record for the continental U.S. for sixty-six years. (David Ludlum)
13 January.1912...The temperature at Oakland, MD plunged to 40 degrees below zero to establish a state record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
14 January 1863...The greatest snowstorm of record for Cincinnati, OH commenced, and a day later twenty inches of snow covered the ground. That total has remained far above the modern day record for Cincinnati of eleven inches of snow in one storm. (David Ludlum)
14 January 1972...A record 24-hour temperature rise for the United States, as well as the world, occurred at Loma, MT when the temperature rose from 54 degrees below zero at 9 AM on the 14th to 49 degrees on the 15th, due to a powerful chinook. This record 103-Fahrenheit degree temperature change in 24 hours was not acknowledged until 2002, when it was recognized due to recommendation of the National Climate Extremes Committee. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
14 January 1979...Chicago, IL was in the midst of their second heaviest snow of record as, in thirty hours, the city was buried under 20.7 inches of snow. The twenty-nine inch snow cover following the storm was an all-time record for Chicago. (David Ludlum)

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