WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

28-31 August 2018

ITEMS OF INTEREST

(new) Hurricane Harvey slammed upper Texas Gulf Coast one year ago -- The upper Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts were subjected to strong winds and torrential rains during the last week of August 2017 as Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a category 4 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) near Rockport, TX late on 25 August, accompanied by maximum sustained surface winds of 130 mph. After making landfall, Harvey weakened to a tropical storm that traveled slowly to the northeast along the Texas coast before moving offshore on the 28th. Harvey returned onshore the next day near the mouth of the Sabine River, the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. Harvey became a remnant low over the lower Mississippi Valley on 1 September. The Houston, Beaumont, and Port Arthur metropolitan areas of Texas were especially hard hit as the slow-moving tropical cyclone was responsible for rainfall totals over a five-day span that exceeded three feet. These rainfall totals, which were responsible for catastrophic flooding especially in Houston, may surpass the 5-day and tropical storm related precipitation totals for the contiguous United States. At least 70 fatalities in the U.S. have been attributed to Harvey. [National Weather Service Houston Weather Office]
World Water Week is being held this week -- Aa week-long global water conference, designated as "World Water Week", is being held this week (26-31 August 2018) in Stockholm, Sweden. The focus of this annual conference that is organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute is global water issues. This year's World Water Week will address the theme "Water, ecosystems and human development."
A change in seasons -- This Friday, 31 August 2018, 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 2018.
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 Saturday, 22 September 2018.
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.
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2018 Campaign for September commences -- The ninth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2018 will commence this Saturday (1 September) and continue through Monday, 10 September. 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 with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. These constellations are Cygnus in the Northern Hemisphere and Sagittarius for the Southern Hemisphere. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The ninth series in the 2018 campaign is scheduled for 1-10 October 2018. [GLOBE at Night]
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 2018 NPM is "Disasters Happen. Prepare Now. Learn How" with an emphasis on planning. Week 1 of the 2018 NPM starts this Saturday (1 September) with the theme of "Make and Practice Your Plan." [FEMA's Ready.gov]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Satellites show "a world on fire" -- An image that appeared recently on NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview shows a global map depicting the locations of active wildfires on global, full-resolution satellite imagery obtained from the thermal bands detected by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument onboard the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite. This image from last Wednesday shows widespread fires as depicted by red dots. Most noticeable are the fires across tropical Africa, Brazil and western North America. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center images]
A closeup image of the wildfires in British Columbia last Thursday available from NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System Worldview shows the locations of 56 notable wildfires across that western Canadian province. In addition, the satellite image reveals the extent of the smoke and haze layer stretching across the province and into neighboring Alberta and Washington state in the U.S. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center images]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Website helps visualize weather and climate data -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has released "Weather and Climate Toolkit" (or WCT), a free, platform independent software that allows the public to visualize and obtain weather and climate data that have been archived by NCEI. These data include traditional weather observations from surface observation networks as well as radar, satellite and model data. The WCT provides tools for background maps and animations. A "Weather and Climate Toolkit Tutorial" is also available that provides additional instructions for using WCT. [NOAA NCEI News]
Global temperature and ice cover for July 2018 reviewed -- Scientists at the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently reported on their analysis of preliminary weather data collected during the month of July 2018:

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2018 was the fourth highest for any July since sufficiently detailed global climate records began in 1880. This July 2018 global combined temperature was 1.35 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century (1901-2000) average of 60.4 degrees Fahrenheit. For comparison, the warmest July on record, as represented by the largest temperature anomaly (arithmetic difference between observed and average temperatures) for the month, was set only two years ago, when the global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2016 was 1.58 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average. When considered separately, the average air temperature over the world oceans for July 2018 was the sixth highest for any July since 1880, while the temperature over the globe's land surfaces was the fifth highest July reading on record.
The researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center noted the areal extent of the Arctic sea ice for July 2018 was the ninth smallest for any July since satellite surveillance began in 1979. The extent of the Antarctic sea ice was the eighth smallest July ice extent in the 40-year record. [NOAA/NCEI State of the Climate]
A global map of Selected Significant Climate Anomalies and Events for July 2018 is available from NCEI.

Ocean uptake of human-generated carbon in 2017 -- One of the key points in the State of the Climate in 2017 recently released by the American Meteorological Society was the increased annual uptake in human-generated carbon in 2017. Carbon dioxide and other gases are constantly being exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere. According to the report, the ocean absorbed a net 2.6 billion tonnes (petagrams) of carbon from human activities, which is 36% higher than the 2005-2015 average of 1.9 billion tonnes. [ NOAA Climate.gov News]
Seasonal and yearly changes in surface water pH monitored in Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean to protect marine life -- In light of increases in ocean acidity in the world’s oceans over the last several decades, NOAA scientists have been developing methods to monitor and visualize the monthly and annual changes in the pH of the surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. (pH is a scale of acidity of a solution that ranges from a value of zero indicating extremely acidic to 14, which is extremely alkaline or basic; a value of seven is neutral.) A series of maps showing the pH of the surface water in the basin have been produced on a monthly basis and animated. Additional maps that show ocean carbon chemistry, including the basin's buffering capacity and the relative concentration of calcium carbonate materials have been produced. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

ENSO forecasts help predict high-tide flooding along the U.S. coasts -- The Director of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) and of the Center for Computational Science Climate and Environmental Hazards Program at the University of Miami posted a guest ENSO blog on NOAA Climate's ClimateWatch Magazine detailing how ENSO forecasts can be used to help predict high-tide flooding along the nation's coasts. (ENSO is an abbreviation for El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which refers to quasi-cyclic multi-year events that include a warm phase called El Niño with warm waters in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific and the cold phase La Niña.) ENSO has been known to impact temperature and precipitation patterns over large sections of the globe, including the United States. Seasonal patterns of temperature and precipitation anomalies (differences from long-term climate averages) across the nation are driven to a certain extent by ENSO. Therefore, three-month outlooks of temperature produced by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center need forecasts of anticipated ENSO conditions. Furthermore, ENSO conditions also can influence the sea level, which may have major implications as the sea level continues to rise in the future. Therefore, determining the risk for tidal flooding in the nation's coastal communities along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico need to consider the impacts associated with El Niño and La Niña conditions. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Wind technology advancements help drive down wind energy prices -- The U.S. Department of Energy recently released its 98-page 2017 Wind Technologies Market Report, which is an annual overview of trends in the U.S. wind power market for the calendar year of 2017. This report, which was prepared by the agency's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, indicate wind energy prices across the nation are at all-time lows as wind turbines grow larger. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory News]
The internet could drown with rising sea level -- A computer sciences professor and a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison warn that the internet is in danger of drowning within the next two decades because of rising sea levels associated with a changing climate. According to their research, critical infrastructure across the U.S., in the form of cables buried in coastal areas and power stations that control the internet, may be compromised in 15 years due to rising sea water levels. They used sea-level rise models to map future sea level rise, which was then superimposed upon maps showing the nation's internet infrastructure. [National Geographic]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Concept of the Week: Touring the AMS Climate Studies RealTime Climate Portal

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

27 August 1948...Buffalo, NY hit its all-time maximum temperature of 99 degrees. (Intellicast)
27 August 1970...Elko, NV was deluged with 3.66 inches of rain in just one hour, establishing a state record. (The Weather Channel)
27 August 1973...The largest documented Canadian hailstone fell at Cedoux, Saskatchewan. The stone weighed 0.55 pounds and measured 4.5 inches across. (The Weather Doctor)
27 August 1986...A mix of snow, ice pellets and rain fell on Sault Ste. Marie, MI during the evening, the first time snow was observed in August since records started in 1888. (Intellicast)
27 August 1995...Remains of Tropical Storm Jerry unloaded 12.32 inches of rain in 24 hours in Greer, SC, a record for 24 hours, for a rain event and for August. At Antreville, 17.00 inches fell in 24 hours, setting a 24-hour rainfall record for the Palmetto State. (Intellicast)
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