WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

2-6 March 2009

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Last year was coolest of the 21st century -- Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently reported that although their data analysis indicates the recently concluded 2008 was the coolest calendar year since 2000, it was also the ninth warmest year since reliable climate records began in 1880. They also noted that the ten warmest years on record have all occurred within the last decade. The scientists found that Eurasia, the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula had temperatures in 2008 that were well above the 1951-1980 averages, much of the Pacific Ocean was cooler than average due to the persistence of a La Niña event. The temperature across the US was close to the long-term average in 2008. [NASA GISS] (Editor's note: The GISS global temperature analysis for 2008 differs slightly from that provided by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center because of the averaging techniques employed. [NOAA News] EJH)
Satellites monitor chemicals that deplete stratospheric ozone -- Scientists from Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology studying data collected from instruments on the European Space Agency's MetOp-A and Envisat satellites have detected several bromine species in the stratosphere (altitudes near 30 miles) due primarily to volcanic eruptions that could destroy stratospheric ozone concentrations. [ESA]
Polar research indicates major environmental changes -- The World Meteorological Organization and the International Council for Science recently released a report "State of Polar Research" that provides evidence of widespread changes in the environmental conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic polar cap regions due to increases in global temperatures. This evidence, which includes changes in ice cover, sea level and plant and animal life in polar regions, has been obtained from the research conducted during the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. [International Council for Science]
Wildfires continue Down Under-- A recent image obtained from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the smoke plumes emanating from the numerous bushfires that have been devastating Australia's state of Victoria because of drought conditions. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Launch of Orbiting Carbon Observatory goes awry -- Minutes after a rocket carrying NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base early last Tuesday morning, the satellite payload that was to monitored greenhouse gases for climate research failed to deploy and came crashing back toward the earth's surface near Antarctica. [CNN] NASA has appointed the deputy director at the Goddard Space Flight Center to lead the Mishap Investigation Board that will investigate the cause of the unsuccessful launch of OCO. [NASA GSFC] The National Research Council has published several reports recently that have been designed to assess the role of earth-observing satellites, such as OCO, in the monitoring Earth's climate and recommending development of priority lists by NASA and NOAA. [The National Academies]
An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAAWatch]
Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]

CLIMATE FORCING

Iberian Peninsula also had "Year without a Summer" -- An international team of scientists studying early 19th century documents and weather observations from Spain and Portugal report that the summers of 1816 and 1817 were colder and wetter than usual across the Iberian Peninsula were suppressed by the sun-shading effect provided by volcanic gases and particulates from the Indonesia's Tambora volcanic eruption, in much the same fashion as what had been observed in the infamous "Year without a Summer," which caused major crop loss in eastern North America during the same years. [AlphaGalileo]
Ash from Chilean volcano tracked -- An image obtained early last week from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite reveals volcanic ash from a recent eruption of Chile’s Chaitén Volcano that lingered above Patagonia. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Winter haze hangs over China -- An image made early last week by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows haze along with clouds that persisted over China’s Sichuan Basin. Stable atmospheric conditions trapped air pollutants from urban and industrial sources in the region's valleys. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Mapping carbon dioxide emissions across the country -- The Vulcan Project, a NASA/US Department of Energy-funded effort conducted at Purdue University under the North American Carbon Program (NACP), has produced a Google Earth map of carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels across the nation in 2002. [NASA]
Large mountain range mapped under Antarctic ice -- An international team of scientists participating in Antarctica's Gamburstev Province (AGAP) project used sophisticated equipment on low-flying aircraft and a network of seismic instruments to generate a relatively detailed image of an Alps-like mountain range under the two-mile thick Antarctic ice that may have helped cause the formation of the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet. [EurekAlert!]
"Snowfakes" used to study physics of snow crystals -- Mathematicians at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California, Davis, have developed a computer model that generates visual renditions of realistic looking snowflakes using equations simulating the complex growth of ice crystals. They feel that their work could be used to increase the understanding of how temperature and humidity can aid in the development of snow in the atmosphere. A slide show of their "snowfakes" is available. [University of Wisconsin News Service]
[Editor's Note: The Schwerdtfeger Library at Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison has a placed a collection of more than 1100 images of real snowflakes online as searchable The Bentley Collection from lantern-slide photographs taken in the early 20th century by Vermont's Wilson A. Bentley, the "Snowflake Man." EJH]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Predicting the flight of invasive species -- A researcher at the University of Florida has developed a model that uses forecast information on temperature, atmospheric humidity and precipitation, along with air traffic patters to determine the travel of invasive plants and animals, including insects, on international airline flights. He foresees that June 2010 could be exceptionally busy as these invasive plants and animals could be spread relatively easily. [University of Florida News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Lower global temperature increases could still produce large impacts -- Scientists associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published a study entitled "Assessing Dangerous Climate Change Through an Update of the IPCC 'Reasons for Concern" claiming that even lower increases in average temperature due to human activity could still have significant impact on the planet than previously thought. They identified five key areas of global concern that involved: risk to unique and threatened ecosystems; risk of extreme weather events; disparities in impacts between poor and affluent geographic regions, nations and populations; aggregate monetary damages and casualties; and risks of large scale discontinuities. [EurekAlert!]
Asian monsoon could be affected by global climate change -- Using a high-resolution climate model, scientists at Purdue University, the National Climate Centre in Beijing and Loyola Marymount University have found that the projected increases in global temperatures during the 21st century could weaken and delay the onset of the South Asian summer monsoon, which is critical to agriculture in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. [Purdue University]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Global oceanic temperature fluctuations seen during last Ice Age -- An international team of British, French, German and US researchers who reconstructed oceanic temperatures of the South Atlantic Ocean during the last Ice Age from a sediment core obtained from the floor of the South Atlantic Ocean has concluded that changes in oceanic circulation within the Atlantic basin led to the large and abrupt changes in the temperatures in the North Atlantic and over Greenland at that time. [EurekAlert!]
Conditions that caused formation of Antarctic glacier studied -- Scientists at Purdue University, Yale University, Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Utrecht University, who reconstructed the temperature variations in the Southern Hemisphere from chemical analysis of ocean cores obtained from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program report that temperatures dropped rapidly in Antarctica approximately 34 million years ago at the Eocene-Oligocene transition, leading to the development of the Antarctic ice sheet and widespread extinction of animal species. [Purdue University] [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Federal climate change research program should realign its focus-- A new report from the National Research Council urges the US Climate Change Science Program to broaden its focus beyond detecting and understanding climate change so as to include research that would help communities and regions develop response strategies that would enable them to cope with the impacts of climate change. [EurekAlert!]
Recent California heat wave affected morbidity rate -- Researchers from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the California Department of Public Health reported that the major heat wave experienced in much of California during July 2006 increased morbidity across the state, along with increased hospitalization and emergency room visits. [EurekAlert!]
Warm water helped fuel killer tropical cyclone -- A recent study conducted at the National Taiwan University, Taipei; and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has found that a pool of warm surface water in the North Indian Ocean appears to have been responsible for the rapid intensification of Tropical Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 to category 4 status (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) just prior to its landfall in Myanmar (Burma), which led to extensive loss of life. [NASA JPL]
Role of humans in Indonesian wildfires assessed -- Researchers at the University of Toronto, VU University Amsterdam and San Diego State University have found that the recent severe wildfires that have raged across Indonesia in the last decade are not only caused by drought conditions, but to humans through changes in population density and land use. [EurekAlert!]
Website for human dimensions of climate change -- An interagency effort within the US federal government that included NOAA, the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service, has resulted in a website called HD.gov (for HumanDimensions.gov) that provides users, such as natural resource managers, with information on the human dimensions on a variety of topics of interest such as climate change. [HD.gov]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

2 March 1927...Raleigh, NC was buried under 17.8 inches of snow in 24 hours, a record for that location. Nashville, NC received 31 inches of snow. The average snow depth in the state of Carolina was fourteen inches. (The Weather Channel)
2 March 1947…The one-day record snowfall of 16 inches of snow buried Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario. The storm left 28.7 inches of snow covering the Ottawa region. (The Weather Doctor)
2 March 1996...Another East Coast snowstorm deposited 4.6 inches of snow at Central Park in New York City to bring its seasonal snowfall total to 66.3 inches, breaking the old season snowfall record of 63.2 inches set in 1947-48. (Intellicast)
3 March 1896...The temperature in downtown San Francisco, CA fell to 33 degrees, which was the lowest ever for the city in March. (Intellicast)
3 March 1971...An extremely intense coastal storm blasted the northeastern US on this day and continued into the 4th. The barometric pressure dropped to 960 millibars (28.36 inches) at Worcester, MA for the lowest pressure ever recorded at the location. The same record was set at Concord, NH with a reading of 963 millibars (28.44 inches). Wind gusts 70 to 100 mph lashed eastern New England with major wind damage occurring. Tides ran 4 to 5 feet above normal resulting in extensive coastal damage and beach erosion. (Intellicast)
3 March 1994...A major coastal storm was in progress over the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. The 8.7 inches of snow at Allentown, PA raised its seasonal snowfall to 69.2 inches for its snowiest winter ever. Boston's 8 inches pushed its seasonal snow to 89.5 inches for its snowiest winter as well. (Intellicast)
3 March 2003…The day's low temperature of 30 degrees below zero at Marquette, MI was the lowest temperature ever recorded in March in the city. (The Weather Doctor)
4 March 1953...Snow was reported on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. (The Weather Channel)
4-5 March 1899...Tropical Cyclone Mahina (the Bathurst Bay Hurricane) crossed Australia's Great Barrier Reef and generated produced the highest storm surge ever recorded: 13 m (42.6 ft) surge in Bathurst Bay. The Australian pearling fleet was destroyed, over 100 shipwrecks reported and 307 people killed. Minimum central pressure barometric pressure fell to an unofficial reading of estimated at 914 millibars (26.90 inches of mercury). (Accord's Weather Calendar) (The Weather Doctor)
5 March 1960...The greatest March snowstorm of record in eastern Massachusetts began to abate. The storm produced record 24-hour snowfall totals of 27.2 inches at Blue Hill Observatory, 17.7 inches at Worcester, and 16.6 inches at Boston. (The Weather Channel)
5 March 2000…The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN established a new record for the fewest number of days between 70-degree Fahrenheit temperature reading from the last date in the autumn to the first date in the spring, with only 113 days passed. The previous record was 131 days, while the average has been 175 days. (The Weather Doctor)
6 March 1900...A chinook wind blowing down the slopes of the Rockies through Havre, MT raised the temperature 31 degrees in just three minutes. (The Weather Channel)
6 March 1954...Florida received its greatest modern-day snowfall of record, with 4.0 inches at the Milton Experimental Station. Pensacola, FL equaled their 24-hour record with 2.1 inches of snow. (The Weather Channel)
6 March 1962...Forty two inches of snow fell at Big Meadows, located in the mountains of Virginia, for a state record as part of the Great Atlantic Coast Storm of 1962. (Intellicast)
6 March 1971…The temperature at Palteau Rosa, Italy fell to 30.2 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, Italy's lowest temperature on record. (The Weather Doctor)
7 March 1932...A severe coastal storm set barometric pressure records from Virginia to New England. Block Island, RI reported a barometric pressure reading of 955.0 millibars (28.20 inches of mercury). (David Ludlum)
7 March 1996...6.5 inches of snow fell at Boston, MA on this date to bring its seasonal total to 96.4 inches -- the city's snowiest winter in 105 years of record keeping. The old record was 96.3 inches set in the 1993-94 winter season. Now all major cities along this East Coast had broken their seasonal snowfall records in the 1995-96 winter season. (Intellicast)
7 March 1999...Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada's snowiest major city set a new record for a one-day snowfall of 45.7 inches, but prior to that date the winter's total had been a meager (for the city) 46 inches of snow. (The Weather Doctor)
8 March 1971...A snowstorm dropped 10 to 20 inches of new snow across Vermont to raise snow depths to record levels. A snow cover of 116 inches was measured on the ground on top of Mount Mansfield, the second highest snow depth ever recorded on the mountain up to the time. The town of Orange measured 88 inches on the ground for a new state low-elevation snow depth record. (Intellicast)
8 March 1992...In the first 8 days of March, Las Vegas, NV recorded 1.87 inches of rain, setting a new monthly record for rainfall in March. The previous record was 1.83 inches set in 1973. (Intellicast)
8 March 1994...A major snowstorm buried sections of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas. Ozark Beach, MO recorded 19 inches of snow, while Harrison, AR checked in with 18 inches. Tulsa, OK had 12.9 of snow, for its greatest single storm snowfall ever. (Intellicast)
8 March 1996...Elkins, WV received 2.1 inches of snow on this day to bring its seasonal snowfall to 125.8 inches -- its snowiest winter on record. (Intellicast)

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