WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

28 August - 1 September 2017

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Another look at the "Great American Eclipse" from space -- A 40-second animation of high resolution natural-color images obtained from the new GOES-16 satellite last Monday (21 August) during the "Great American Eclipse" was produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center. Note how a large dark shadow progresses from the Pacific Northwest to the east-southeast across the United States and exits out over the Southeast Atlantic Coast. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Six NOAA back-to-school tools are ready for teachers -- The NOAA Education program has made six classroom-ready Earth science resource tools available to K-12 teachers in time for the start of the 2017-18 school year. These online digital resources and social media channels are intended to allow students to explore the Earth sciences, including the weather, ocean and climate sciences. [NOAA Stories]
World Water Week in Stockholm is underway -- The 26th annual "World Water Week in Stockholm" is being held from Sunday 27 August through Friday 1 September in Stockholm, Sweden. This week-long global water conference, which is arranged by the Stockholm International Water Institute, addresses a wide range of the world's water, development and sustainability issues and related concerns of international development. This year's World Water Week Theme is "Water and Waste: Reduce and Reuse." [World Water Week in Stockholm]
A change in seasons -- This Thursday, 31 August 2017, marks the end of Northern Hemisphere's meteorological summer, the three-month span of June, July and August that meteorologists frequently use for record keeping processes. Meteorological autumn (September, October and November) for the Northern Hemisphere starts the following day, 1 September 2017.
Additional information will be presented in the next several weeks concerning meteorological seasons and the astronomical seasons, such as the familiar autumn season that begins on the autumnal equinox in three weeks on Friday, 22 September 2017.
High-quality maps of September 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 September and other months 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.
September 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 September, 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.
Accessing and interpreting climate data -- If you would like to obtain a variety of climate data for your home town or state that are available from the National Weather Service, please read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth. This Supplemental not only identifies some of the sites to find the data, but also provides you with a brief explanation of the terminology used to identify the climate data.
September is National Preparedness Month -- The upcoming month of September has been declared National Preparedness Month (NPM), which is aims to educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to all types of emergencies, including natural disasters. NPM is managed and sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Administration's (FEMA) Ready Campaign in conjunction with the Ad Council, A toolkit of marketing materials is provided to help promote the month and represents the lead on this campaign that was originally launched in 2004. The overarching theme for 2017 NPM is "Disasters Don’t Plan Ahead. You Can.," with an emphasis on preparedness for youth, older adults, and people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs. Week 1 of the 2017 NPM starts at the end of the upcoming week (1- 9 September) with the theme of "Make a Plan for Yourself, Family and Friends."
[FEMA's Ready.gov]
The historic Krakatau eruption of 1883 is remembered -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) posted a feature describing the catastrophic eruption of the volcano on the island of Krakatau on 26 August 1883. The blast from this volcanic eruption on the island between Sumatra and Java, along with the series of lava and ash flows created immense tsunamis as high as 135 feet that propagated across the western Pacific Ocean and resulted in the destruction of hundreds of coastal villages on adjacent islands along with the deaths of approximately 36,000 people. A pressure shock wave was noted on barometers around the world. Large clouds of ash, dust and condensate were sent as high as 50 miles in altitude that darkened the skies and eventually resulted in the creation of a layer in the stratosphere (at altitudes between 10 and 50 km) that lowered the global air temperature by nearly one Fahrenheit degree over the next year. NCEI maintains a Volcanic Eruption Database that has more than 500 significant volcanic eruptions from around the world dating back to 1750. In addition, NCEI has data and information on global historical tsunami events. [NOAA NCEI News]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Cruise begins to study environmental change in western Arctic Ocean -- At the end of last week a team of NOAA scientists and colleagues departed from Dutch Harbor, AK onboard the USS Coast Guard Cutter Healy on a 22-day cruise designed to study environmental change in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska. The Healy will follow along the Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO), an array of instrumented buoys and other observing systems. Unmanned Saildrones have been deployed in July to help chart the course of the Healy. The scientists will track sea ice decline, increasing air and water temperature and ocean acidification. [NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]
Evidence of huge outburst floods in East Greenland found by satellites -- Using satellite data, scientists at Denmark's University of Copenhagen and Spain's Complutense University have found evidence that four huge outburst floods occurred over the last 50 years from ice-dammed Lake Catalina in East Greenland. Each of these floods released amounts of fresh water into a fjord that had volumes ranging between one half and one cubic miles. The researchers foresee another flood occurring as early as 2018-19. Increased global temperatures appear to contribute to the meltdown of glaciers in Greenland and to the leakage of water from the ice-dammed lakes. [University of Copenhagen News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Global ocean carbon data placed into one repository -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently created the "Ocean Carbon Data System" (OCADS), a data management project that is designed to place all ocean carbon data into one repository for use by scientists and other interested parties. The OCADS site contains ocean carbon measurements made from around the world from a variety of platforms, including research ships, commercial ships, and buoys. According to current estimates, the global oceans absorb approximately 26 percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from both natural and human sources. Therefore, a knowledge of the cycling of carbon dioxide in the ocean is important for understanding climate and climate change. [NOAA NCEI News]
Asteroid that led to demise of dinosaurs may have created two years of darkness around the globe -- Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado Boulder recently reported on the results of their computer simulations indicating that large quantities of light-absorbing soot from global wildfires following the massive asteroid approximately 66 million years ago would have been capable of creating two years of darkness, which would have shut down photosynthesis and drastically cooling the planet. The reduction of photosynthesis and the global cooling appears to have contributed to the mass extinction that marked the end of the Cretaceous Period, corresponding to the end of the age of the dinosaurs. The large asteroid hit Earth in what is now Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]
Arctic ice cores find changes in winter storm intensity are due to changing climate -- Ice cores that have been collected from mountain glaciers in Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory by a team of researchers show that a dramatic change in the climate that began nearly 300 years ago has resulted in an increase in the intensity and duration of winter storms in the Arctic. A professor from Dartmouth University attributes the unprecedented increase in winter storms in Alaska to changes in weather patterns associated with a warming of the near-surface waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean. [Dartmouth University News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Changes in ENSO forecasts impact the 2017 Atlantic seasonal hurricane forecasts -- The lead author of the Colorado State University's seasonal forecasts, Dr. Phil Klotzbach, recently wrote a guest post for the ENSO blog that describes how Atlantic seasonal hurricane forecasts are impacted by ENSO forecasts. (ENSO stands for El Niño-Southern Oscillation.) He notes that currently more than 20 long-range ENSO forecasts are currently available that are used by him and others, including NOAA and the University College-London, to make seasonal hurricane forecasts. These forecasters have recently investigated real-time forecast skill of seasonal Atlantic hurricane forecasts issued in April, late May/early June and early August between 2003 and 2015. They found limited skill in their April forecasts, moderate sill in early June forecasts and good skill in their August forecasts. Apparently, the skill increase was due to improvement in the skill of the ENSO predictions. Dr. Klotzbach directed attention to the changes in the ENSO forecasts during this current year. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Kodiak bears being lured from their salmon streams by a changing climate -- Biologists from Oregon State University, the University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station and the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge report that Kodiak bears, the world's largest bears that inhabit Alaska's Kodiak Island, appear to have been lured away from salmon streams by abundant quantities of early-arriving red elderberries found on the island's hillsides. The researchers claim that this "prey switch" over the last several summers is due to changing climate conditions that have resulted in the ripening of the elderberries before the salmon have spawned in the streams. [Oregon State University Extension Service News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

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

Concept of the Week: Touring the DataStreme Earth's Climate System Website

NOTE: This Concept for the Week is a repeat of that which appeared in last week's Weekly Climate News.

The RealTime Climate Portal is intended to deliver a wealth of climate information that is both pertinent to the course as well as being a reference site for you as you study Earth's climate system. The webpage is arranged in several sections. On Monday of each week of the course, we will post the current Weekly Climate News that includes Climate in the News (a summary listing of recent events related to climate), Concept of the Week (an in-depth analysis of some topic related to climate in the Earth system), and Historical Events (a list of past events important in the understanding of climatology). When appropriate, Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth will be provided on some topic related to the principal theme of the week.

You will use the RealTime Climate Portal along with the "Current Climate Studies" that complement your Climate Studies Investigations Manual. These materials should also be available Monday morning. Click the appropriate links to download and print these electronic components of the investigations as well as your response forms.

Beyond these course Learning Files, sections include Climate Information, Climate Variability, Climate Change, Societal Interactions and Climate Policy, and Extras. As the titles suggest, there are multiple uses for climate data and their interpretation. Here we explore some examples of the information provided in the various sections of the RealTime Climate Portal.

The Climate Information section includes access to weather data, the raw material of climate synthesis, from the United States and the world under the heading "Observations and Data." Under this heading, click on "NOAA's Climate.gov." This page displays weather and climate stories and the Dashboard shows graphs of climate information back to 1880.

The second major subdivision of the RealTime Climate Portal encompasses Climate Variability. Climatic variability refers to the fluctuations and oscillations that may occur within the climate system at temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events. Select the link, "NOAA El Niño Page". The page that appears provides access to a wealth of background and information on El Niño and La Niña, including the animation showing sea surface temperatures (SST) in the tropical Pacific during recent months. The page of current tropical Pacific conditions appears on a small map.

The third major section of the RealTime Climate Portal is termed Climate Change. Here we provide links to information and analyses that primarily focus on anthropogenic (human-made) change processes and results in the climate system. That prominently includes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's ("IPCC") latest classic report on atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions and their effects. Also linked are modeling results ("Models") based on those studies.

The last major section of the RealTime Climate Portal is titled Societal Interactions and Climate Policy. This block contains information on the impacts of projected change on human societies around the world, beyond that listed in the IPCC report, and the international actions and debates regarding those issues. Select and click on "National Climate Assessment (NCA3) Highlights" in this section. This webpage introduces you to the latest comprehensive and authoritative report on climate change and its impacts in the United States, now and in the future. You will be directed to this report several times in this course.

Completing the RealTime Climate Portal is the Extras section of additional handy information for the course and individual study such as dictionaries of terms, maps and materials. Choose and examine one of the Climate Literacy links. This document has recently been developed and released by NOAA to provide an overview of general concepts and information the general public and especially students should be aware of regarding the climate and the climate debate.

Historical Events

28 August 1911...Saint George, GA was deluged with 18.00 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record that was subsequently broken by the current record of 21.10 inches in July 1994. (The Weather Channel)
28-29 August 1962...Hackberry, LA was deluged with 22 inches of rain in 24 hours, establishing a state record. (The Weather Channel)
29 August 1876...A torrential downpour inundated St John's Newfoundland with 173.2 mm (6.8 inches) of rainfall, the greatest single daily accumulation ever recorded in the province. (The Weather Doctor)
29 August 1965...The observatory on top of Mount Washington NH reported a snowfall of 2.5 inches of snow, a national record for the month of August. (The Weather Doctor)
29 August 2005...As Hurricane Katrina traveled across the northern Gulf of Mexico toward the Louisiana Coast, a reconnaissance aircraft determined that Katrina's minimum central pressure was 902 millibars (or 26.64 inches of mercury), the fifth lowest pressure ever recorded in an Atlantic hurricane. Katrina was also the third most-intense land-falling hurricane in US history based on a minimum landfall pressure of 920 millibars (or 27.17 inches of mercury). (The Weather Doctor)
29 August 2007...With its high temperature pegged at 113 degrees, Phoenix, AZ set a new record of 29 days with 110-degree or higher temperatures. (The Weather Doctor)
30 August 2000...The temperature rose to 111 degrees at the North Little Rock Airport in Arkansas, setting a new record for the highest temperature ever observed at that location. (The Weather Doctor)
31 August 1885...A record 71-day dry period began at Calgary, Alberta. (The Weather Doctor)
31 August 1889...Los Angeles, CA set two local rainfall records as 0.61 inches fell, the maximum 24-hour and monthly records for August. (Intellicast)
31 August 1915...The temperature at Bartlesville, OK dipped to 38 degrees to establish a state record for the month of August. (The Weather Channel)
31 August 1971...The low of 84 degrees and high of 108 degrees at Death Valley, CA were the lowest of the month. The average daily high was 115.7 degrees that August, and the average daily low was 93.4 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
31 August 1987...Frost was reported in South Dakota. Aberdeen, SD established a record for the month of August with a morning low of 32 degrees, and Britton, SD dipped to 31 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
1 September 1914...The town of Bloomingdale, MI was deluged with 9.78 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record for the Wolverine State. (31^st-1^st) (The Weather Channel) (NCDC)
1 September 1955...The temperature at Los Angeles, CA soared to an all-time high of 110 degrees during an eight-day string of 100-degree weather. (David Ludlum)
2 September 1752...The British Empire adopted the Gregorian Calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of western Europe (primarily 1582). To correct the imprecise leap year correction in the Julian Calendar, 11 days were dropped making the following day 14 September. (Wikipedia) (Today in Science History)
2 September 1935...Perhaps the most intense hurricane ever to hit the U.S. struck the Florida Keys with sustained winds of over 155 mph with gusts exceeding 200 mph. The "Labor Day Hurricane" produced a fifteen-foot tide and waves thirty feet high. More than 400 persons perished in the storm on that Labor Day, including many World War I veterans building a bridge from the Keys to the mainland. The barometric pressure at Matecumbe Bay, FL hit a record low for the U.S. of 26.35 inches of mercury (or 892.3 millibars). (David Ludlum)
2 September 1950...The temperature at Mecca, CA soared to 126 degrees to establish the U.S. record high temperature for the month of September. The low that morning was 89 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
2-3 September 1961...Denver, CO received 4.2 inches of snow, the earliest measurable snow on record for this city. (Intellicast)
3 September 1953...The temperature at Erie, PA reached 99 degrees, and Stroudsburg, PA established a state record for September with a reading of 106 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
3 September 1970...During the early evening hours, in the midst of a severe hailstorm at Coffeyville, KS, a stone 17.5 inches in circumference and 1.67 pounds in weight was recovered. At the time, it was the largest measured hailstone in U.S. weather records. Average stone size from the storm was five inches in diameter, with another stone reportedly eight inches in diameter. (David Ludlum) A larger, though lighter stone has since fallen in Nebraska, 22 June 2003. (The Weather Doctor)

Return to RealTime Climate Portal