8-12 February 2010

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• Historic blizzard hits nation's capital -- A winter storm accompanied by heavy snowfall and strong winds that produced blizzard conditions moved across the Middle Atlantic States this past Friday and Saturday. This storm brought record or near record snowfall totals to numerous cities across the region, including the Washington, DC, Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia, PA, Atlantic City, NJ and Pittsburgh, PA metropolitan areas. Some locations received over 30 inches of snow during the two-day span, with the 32.4 inches of snow received at Washington's Dulles International Airport establishing a new two-day snowfall record. The snowfall at Washington's Reagan National Airport (17.8 inches) and the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (24.8 inches) were reached second place in all-time two-day snowfall totals. To add to the region's woes, more snow from another winter storm was forecast for early this upcoming week. [USA Today] Graphics showing the snowfall totals and historic rankings are available. [The Weather Channel]
• 2010 Winter Games climate site is posted -- With the start of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in the Vancouver, BC metropolitan area and southern British Columbia at the end of this week, the Minister of Environment Canada announced the official Environment Canada's 2010 Winter Games weather website. This site, which current weather observations and forecasts, links to a web page provides historical weather or climate information for the region covering the months of February and March. [Environment Canada]
• Radar imaging flights conducted over Central America and Hispaniola -- A research aircraft from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center made flights over Central America and Hispaniola with an onboard Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar during the second week of a three-week campaign designed to measure biomass and image volcanoes in Central America, as well as to detect earthquake faults in Hispaniola. [NASA JPL]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

• British Isles experiencing a cold winter -- The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UK Met Office) recently reported that Scotland recorded its coldest December-January period since 1914 when detailed records began in that country. [BBC News] They also reported that Northern Ireland had its coldest December-January period since 1962-63. [BBC News] A researcher with the UK Met Office provided information about why the British Isles were cold during the first two months of meteorological winter (December and January) while other areas of the world were warm. [BBC News]
• Explaining the global-average temperature records -- Recent controversy has developed concerning the differences between three widely quoted data sets that portray the year by year global temperature trends beginning in the mid to late nineteenth century. These independent data sets were generated from essentially the same surface temperature observations by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the United Kingdom Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT3) using slightly different averaging techniques. Dr. Peter Stott from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office explains the three independent primary temperature data sets used to calculate global temperature trends. [UK Met Office] [Editor's note: Additional information and access to the HadCRUT3 can be obtained from the UK Met Office site. EJH]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

• New geosynchronous environmental satellite readied for launch -- Scientists and engineers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Boeing Company are readying the new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-P for launch on 1 March 2010. This new generation geosynchronous weather satellite will have improved image resolution from its spatial "imager" instrument, as well as improvements in image navigation. In addition to monitoring weather, sensors on this satellite will monitor ocean surface temperatures, snow and ice cover, crop conditions and "space weather" that includes monitoring solar radiation reaching the satellite. [NASA GOES-P Mission]
• Satellites are important in glacier-melting debate -- The European Space Agency (ESA) recently highlighted its GlobGlacier project that it started in 2007 to develop and apply necessary technologies needed to monitor and inventory the Earth's glaciers using satellite observations. To date, approximately 20,000 of the estimated 160,000 glaciers worldwide have been added to the inventory, which allow adequate tracking of the changes in glaciers over time for climate monitoring. The ESA and NASA satellites used to provide data to the GlobGlacier project are also identified. [ESA]
• 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

• Instrument to monitor space weather to be launched on Sun-studying satellite -- NASA is planning to launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on Tuesday (9 February) that will have an instrument package developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder which will measure rapid fluctuations in solar output emanating in the extreme ultraviolet regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. These high-energy variations in solar output can have a major impact not only upon the Earth's upper atmosphere, but also upon communications systems, power grids and satellites, including astronauts. [University of Colorado at Boulder] [Editor's note: NASA has a website at http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ for its SDO mission that has a countdown to launch clock and links that permit viewing the launch of the spacecraft from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. EJH]
• Soot affects glacial melting in Himalayans -- Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found that soot in the form of airborne black carbon aerosols from India appears to play a major role in the decline in snow and ice cover on the glaciers in the Himalayan Mountains. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]
• White roofs could cool cities -- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and their colleagues have used computer models along with a demonstration building to show that painting the roofs of buildings white lowers temperatures and can successfully cool urban areas. [NCAR/UCAR]
• Reassessing the impact of Milankovitch cycles on climate -- A research team at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton and colleagues from Germany has been focusing on the natural cycles associated with variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun (also known as the Milankovitch cycles). [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

• Facility to study northern ecosystem response to climate change -- Researchers with the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the US Department of Agriculture have been cooperating in constructing an experimental facility in a northern Minnesota spruce, which would be used in conjunction with a multi-year experiment SPRUCE (Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Climatic and Environmental change) to study how high-carbon spruce bogs would respond to increased temperatures and carbon dioxide levels. [Oak Ridge National Laboratory News]
• Waterfowl and prairie potholes are vulnerable to a warming climate -- In a study conducted by the US Geological Society, the University of Idaho, South Dakota State University, University of Montana, wetlands in North America's prairie pothole region could be lost because of projected warmer and drier climate conditions. This wetland loss would negatively affect millions of waterfowl such as ducks that inhabit the region. [USGS Newsroom]
• Oceans sensitive to factors involved with climate change -- A famous renowned Antarctic marine biologist from the University of Alabama at Birmingham claims that the research he and colleagues conducted indicates that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are not only causing climate change, but is also increasing the acidity of the world's oceans, which poses an increasing threat to the marine environment. He also notes that the Southern Oceans are especially vulnerable. [University of Alabama-Birmingham]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

• Studying how plants made a land invasion -- Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis claim their research indicates biological mechanisms in certain plant species helped in plants to spread across a somewhat hostile land surface approximately 480 million years ago. The researchers point to the ability of desiccated moss to revive on dry land if moistened. [EurekAlert!]
• Chemistry of ancient seawater deciphered from carbonates -- A team of scientists from the United Kingdom's University of Southampton and the Imperial College of London and from the University of Michigan have demonstrated a method of reconstructing the variations in the chemical composition of ocean water over geological time from samples of calcium carbonate veins in the upper ocean crust that were obtained from the Ocean Drilling Program and Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

• Public supports climate and energy policies -- The results of a national survey recently conducted by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities that regardless of political affiliation, Americans support passage of a federal climate and energy policies. These results follow a recent poll conducted by the researchers that show a sharp drop in public concern over global warming. [George Mason University]
• Eight "climate engagement" mini-grants awarded -- Eight NOAA National Sea Grant College Program grants were recently awarded as worth $25,000 "climate engagement" mini-grants to local university Sea Grant programs and NOAA Regional Collaboration Teams in eight regions including Alaska, the Pacific Islands and the coasts of the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic and Great Lakes in the continental United States. [NOAA News]
• Documenting intentional changes to river flow and sedimentation -- Comparison of images made by sensors onboard NASA's Landsat satellites taken in 1989 and 2009 of China's Huang He (Yellow River) shows the effects upon the distribution of sediments at the river's mouth into the Bohai Sea due to intentional efforts by engineers to regulate the river flow for flood control and coastal development protection. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• 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.

Concept of the Week: Arctic Sea Ice Cover Approaching Tipping Point?

A tipping point is a threshold in a system when some new and perhaps irreversible development takes place. Some scientists propose that the Arctic sea ice cover is approaching a tipping point and will soon disappear in summer. Since about 47.5 million years ago, the climate of northern latitudes has been cold enough to support an ice cover on the Arctic Ocean albeit with seasonal and long-term variations in extent. Beginning in the 1950s, measurements from ships and aircraft detected shrinkage in the summer minimum extent of ice whereas the winter maximum remained nearly constant. By the mid-1970s, surveillance by satellites and submarines found that the winter maximum extent of ice was also declining. In 2007, the extent of end-of-summer sea ice cover reached a record low.

Shrinkage of Arctic sea ice cover is likely to trigger a feedback mechanism that will accelerate melting of sea ice and amplify warming of the Arctic region. Sea ice insulates the overlying air from warmer seawater and reflects much more incident solar radiation than ocean water. As sea ice cover shrinks, the greater area of ice-free ocean waters absorbs more solar radiation, sea-surface temperatures rise, and more ice melts-an example of positive feedback.

With the decline of Arctic sea ice cover to record or near record summer minima, some scientists speculate that Arctic ice may be approaching its tipping point, that is, a complete loss of summer ice may be imminent.

Concept of the Week: Questions

(Each week you will be asked to respond to two questions relating to that week's Concept of the Week topic. Place your responses on the Chapter Progress Response Form provided in the Study Guide.)

1. In the Arctic Ocean, water is [(more)(less)] reflective of solar radiation than floating ice.
2. The post-1970 shrinkage of Arctic sea-ice cover is likely the result of a [(warming)(cooling)] at northern latitudes.

Historical Events:

• 8 February 1933...The record low temperature for the state of Texas was set at Seminole when the mercury dropped to 23 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 8 February 1936...The temperature at Denver, CO plunged to its all-time record low temperature of 30 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 9 February 1899...Norway House, Manitoba reported a temperature of 63 degrees below zero to set the province's record for lowest temperature. (The Weather Doctor)
• 9 February 1933...The temperature at Moran, WY, located next to Teton National Park, plunged to 63 degrees below zero to establish a state record. The temperature at the Riverside Ranger Station in Montana near West Yellowstone, MT dipped to 66 below zero to establish a record for the state, and a record for the nation, which stood until 1954. (David Ludlum)
• 9 February 1934...The mercury dipped to 51 degrees below zero at Vanderbilt to establish a record for the state of Michigan. The temperature at Stillwater Reservoir plunged to 52 degrees below zero to establish a record for the state of New York; this record was subsequently tied in February 1979. (David Ludlum) (NCDC)
• 10 February 1899...The record low temperature for the state of Ohio was set at Milligan when the mercury dipped to 39 degrees below zero. The record low temperature for Virginia was also set at Monterey with 29 degrees below zero; this record has been broken in January 1985. (Intellicast) (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
• 11 February 1895...Braemar (Grampian), Scotland reported a temperature of 17 degrees below zero, the lowest temperature ever measured in the United Kingdom. (The Weather Doctor)
• 11 February 1899...Perhaps the greatest of all arctic outbreaks commenced on this date. The record low temperature for Washington, DC was set when the temperature fell to 15 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
• 11 February 1935...Temperature of 11 degrees below zero at Ifrane, Morocco was the lowest temperature ever in Africa. (The Weather Doctor)
• 11 February 1970...Mount Washington, NH, the highest point in New England, recorded 10.38 inches during a 24-hour span (10^th-11^th) to set a statewide 24 hour maximum precipitation record. (NCDC)
• 11 February 1999...Tahtsa Lake, located in the Whitesail Range of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia reported 57 inches of snow, which set a new 24-hour snowfall record for Canada, eclipsing the old record of 46.5 inches of snow that fell at Lakelse, BC on 17 January 1974. This former record replaced a 44.0 inch summertime snowfall on 29 June 1963 at Livingston Ranger Station, AB. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (The Weather Doctor)
• 12 February 1899...Texas and the eastern Great Plains experienced their coldest morning of modern record. The temperature at Camp Clarke, NE plunged to 47 degrees below zero to establish a record for the Cornhusker State; this record has been tied in December 1989. (David Ludlum)
• 13 February 1784...Ice floes blocked the Mississippi River at New Orleans, then passed into the Gulf of Mexico. The only other time this occurred was during the "Great Arctic Outbreak" of 1899. (David Ludlum)
• 13 February 1899...It was the coldest morning of record along the Gulf Coast. The mercury dipped to 2 degrees below zero at Tallahassee, the lowest reading of record for the state of Florida. The record low temperature for the state of Louisiana was set at Minden, when the thermometer fell to 16 degrees below zero. A trace of snow fell at Fort Myers, FL. This was the farthest south snow has ever been observed in the U.S. until 1977 when snow fell in Miami. The lowest temperature ever recorded at Dayton, OH occurred when it dropped to 28 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
• 13 February 1905...Morning lows of 29 degrees below zero at Pond, AR, 40 degrees below at Lebanon, KS, and 40 below at Warsaw, MO established all-time records for those three states. (The Weather Channel)

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.