WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

22-28 June 2009

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2009 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 31 August 2009. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST --

Welcome to the weather and ocean educators attending the 2009 DataStreme LIT Leader Workshop that is being held at Gulfport/Biloxi, MS from 24 June to 27 June 2009.
Lightning Awareness Week -- The nation will celebrate its annual National Lightning Safety Awareness Week, this upcoming week, 21 through 27 June 2009, as declared by the National Weather Service. On average, 66 people in the nation are killed annual by lightning and numerous more are injured. A cartoon character, Leon the Lightning Lion, is promoting the slogan "When thunder roars, go indoors!" The National Weather Service, in conjunction with other sponsors, has a "Lightning Safety" website, http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/, that has links to a variety of informational and teacher resource materials. As many as 20 states are also observing this week with statewide activities. A new feature is being presented this year, as a video can be downloaded with Quicktime software featuring a Miss America hopeful, Ellen Bryan whose sister was struck and seriously injured by lightning. [NOAA News]
Global Climate Change Report Released --The Federal government released a new report entitled "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" on 16 June 2009, More information including with access to the executive summary, regional results, and the full report can be obtained from the U.S. Global Change Research Program. [NOAA News]
Economic value of national spatial reference system is determined -- A consulting company from New Jersey recently determined that the economic value of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), which is managed by NOAA's Geodetic Service, at more than $2.4 billion. This program, which utilizes GPS (Global Positioning System) technology, is the official US Government source for precise latitude, longitude and elevation measurements and is becoming increasingly important for a variety of environmental science investigations that involve changes in sea level and determination of flood plains. [NOAA News]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

May drought report -- The National Climate Data Center has posted its May 2009 drought report online. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately 12 percent of the coterminous United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of May, while 12 percent of the area had severely to extremely wet conditions.
A warm May across the globe -- Scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reported that their analysis of preliminary data indicates that the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for May 2009 was the fourth highest May since sufficiently dense worldwide records began in 1880. The sea surface temperature average from around the globe was the third highest, while the land surface temperature for May was the eighth highest. Sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific continued to increase, suggesting the presence of an ENSO neutral state.
In addition, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that the extent of the Arctic sea ice was slightly less than the 1979-2000 average, while the Antarctic sea ice cover was approximately six percent higher than the 1979-2000 average. [NOAA News]
New GOES satellite scheduled for launch -- NASA has scheduled the liftoff of a geosynchronous weather satellite, GOES-O, from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Forces Station this coming Friday evening, 26 June 2009 between 6:14 to 7:14 p.m. EDT. This satellite would be the second of three in the current GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) series. Check the NASA website for the pre-launch news conference scheduled for 1 PM EDT on 25 June. [NASA]
New "Sea Level Viewer" website permits monitoring of ocean trends -- NASA’s Global Climate Change website out of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently unveiled the "Sea Level Viewer" an interactive visualization tool as part of its NASA’s Global Climate Change website that will allow the public access to the precise height of the Earth's oceans as obtained by the TOPEX/Poseidon and Ocean Surface Topography Mission onboard the agency's Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites. [NASA JPL/GSFC]
QuickSCAT reaches tenth anniversary -- NASA's Quick Scatterometer mission, known as QuickSCAT was launched ten years ago this past week carrying the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's SeaWinds instrument that provided high resolution measurements of near surface winds over the planet's large water bodies using backscatter of radar signals sent to the surface by the satellite's radar. [NASA JPL]
Raising children's ocean health awareness -- NASA Langley Research Center's Students Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) program is teaming with the Pacific Science Center and Sailors for the Sea to participate in a 25,000 mile sailing journey around the Americas on the vessel Ocean Watch designed to raise the awareness of the health of the world's ocean by the youth. A variety of observations will be made from onboard this vessel and these data will be compared with data collected by sensors on NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) satellite. [NASA LaRC]
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

Computer model of sunspots created -- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Germany's Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research have perfected the first comprehensive computer model of sunspots, producing detailed visualizations of the features that develop on the solar surface and that could ultimately affect the weather and climate on Earth. [UCAR/NCAR]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Ocean acidification could cause economic decline in shellfish fisheries -- Research conducted at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution indicates increases in ocean acidity due to changes in ocean chemistry caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide associated with anthropogenic activity could result in a significant drop in shellfish revenues in the US during the next 50 years. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
Geoengineering scheme unlikely to save corals -- Researchers at the Carnegie Institution and Canada's Concordia University caution that the geoengineering scheme to counteract rising global temperatures by artificially shading the earth with a sunscreen would do little to stop ocean acidification of the world oceans that threaten coral reefs. They claim that increased carbon dioxide levels will result in acidic conditions, even with lower global temperatures. [EurekAlert!]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Drastic climate alteration associated with ancient drought and rapid cooling -- Professor Lonnie Thompson, the noted researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, reported on research that he has conducted on ice cores he collected on 50 expeditions around the world indicates an extensive and long-lived drought across Africa and Asia roughly 4500 years ago that was followed by rapid cooling associated with growth of tropical glaciers. [Ohio State University Research News]
Tracking the survival of mammoths in British Isles -- A professor associated with the Natural History Museum in London has determined that the bones found in England's West Midlands region provides evidence that woolly mammoths remained until 14,000 years ago, a time more recent than previously thought. This researcher believes that the last appearance of the mammoths correlate with climate changes that resulted in the advance of forests, which replaced the open grassy areas of the Ice Age, an environment favorable to the mammoths. [EurekAlert!]
Half-million year climate record constructed from sediment core -- Using a oxygen isotope proxy method, researchers at the Ohio State University, the University of South Florida, Germany's University of Bremen and Portugal's Laboratorio Nacional de Energia e Geologia have reconstructed a record of ancient climate over the last half-million years from the upper portion of an sediment core retrieved from the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. [Ohio State University Research News]
A two million-year carbon dioxide record constructed -- Using a technique that measures the ration of boron isotopes, scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the University of Chicago and the United Kingdom's University of Bristol have analyzed shells of plankton buried under Atlantic Ocean waters off the African coast to determine the variations in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the last 2.1 million years. They have found that while carbon dioxide has varied over the last two million years, the current carbon dioxide concentrations are at the highest levels of the entire period. [EurekAlert!]
Studying the climate-related demise of ancient forests -- An international team of researchers have been studying marine sediments and fossils of plants across the Arctic to see how forests changed approximately 33.5 million years ago during the transition between the Late Eocene and Early Oligocene when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels began to decrease and global temperatures fell. [EurekAlert!]
Ancient collapse in biodiversity investigated -- Scientists from the British Isles studying fossil leaves collected in East Greenland have found evidence of a sudden collapse in the biodiversity of plants at the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods (approximately 200 million years ago) that corresponds to a small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, increases in sulfur dioxide from volcanic emissions could have also contributed to plant extinctions. [EurekAlert!]
Extent of an ancient ice age is determined -- Geologists at the United Kingdom's University of Leicester have shown that an ancient ice age at approximately 440 million years ago, named "the Early Paleozoic Icehouse", lasted for 30 million years in the Ordovician and Silurian Periods, representing a significantly longer time span than earlier thought. They also showed that widespread ice formation associated with continental glaciation resulted in rapid changes in sea level around the planet. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

British Climate Act is criticized -- Roger A Pielke Jr., a noted professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, has written a journal paper claiming that the British Climate Act is flawed and comprised of unrealistic and unobtainable goals aimed at changing the British economy away from one that is carbon-based. He argues that objectives should be set for efficiency gains in specific economic sectors and for the expansion of carbon-free energy supplies would be a more realistic first step. [EurekAlert!]
New cooperative institute established to study climate and North Atlantic ecosystems -- Officials with NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and National Marine Fisheries Service recently announced the establishment of the new Cooperative Institute for North Atlantic Region (CINAR) that includes collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Rutgers University, the University of Maryland, the University of Maine and Gulf of Maine Research Institute. This cooperative institute will conduct ocean and climate research designed to better understand the correlation between climate change and variability, fishing practices and fish populations, as well as develop an integrated capability to research emerging issues from an ecosystem perspective. [NOAA News]
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:

22 June 1947…Heavy rains deluged Holt, MO as a foot of rain fell in 42 minutes, still a world's record rainfall rate for the fastest foot of rain accumulation. (The Weather Doctor)
22 June 1987...Thunderstorms in New York State produced 5.01 inches of rain in 24 hours at Buffalo, an all-time record for that location.
The temperature at Fairbanks, AK soared to 92 degrees, establishing a record for the date. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
22 June 1988...Tucson, AZ reported an all-time record high of 114 degrees, surpassing the previous record of 112 degrees established a day earlier. Highs of 98 degrees at Pittsburgh, PA and 100 degrees at Baltimore, MD tied records for the month of June. (The National Weather Summary)
22 June 2003...The largest recorded hailstone in the United States fell on Aurora, NE. The diameter of this hailstone was 7 inches, and its circumference was 18.75 inches. (Northern Indiana NWSFO) The National Weather Service reported this hailstone was the largest ever documented in the U.S. by size, but the second largest hailstone by weight.
The mercury peaked at 95 degrees in the northern community of Moosonee, Ontario, the hottest June day ever recorded here. (The Weather Doctor)
23 June 1902...The temperature at Volcano Springs, CA soared to 129 degrees to set a June record high temperature for the U.S. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders)
23 June 1982…The temperature fell to all-time record low of 117 degrees below zero for Antarctica's South Pole Weather Station. (The Weather Doctor)
24 June 1946...Mellen, WI received 11.72 inches of rain, setting a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the Badger State. (NCDC)
24 June 1972...Rainier Park Ranger Station in Washington State had 4.4 inches of snow on this day. This turned out to be the last snowfall for the 1971-72 season and brought the seasonal total to 1122 inches -- a new single season snowfall record for the U.S. (Intellicast)
24 June 1988...Forty-three cities reported record high temperatures for the date. Valentine, NE reported an all-time record high of 110 degrees, and highs of 102 degrees at Casper, WY, 103 degrees at Reno, NV, and 106 degrees at Winnemucca, NV were records for the month of June. Highs of 98 degrees at Logan, UT and 109 degrees at Rapid City, SD equaled June records. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
25 June 1925...The mercury hit 101 degrees at Portland, OR, their earliest 100 degree reading of record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders)
25 June 1953...The temperature at Anchorage, AK soared to 86 degrees, their highest reading of record. (The Weather Channel)
25 June 1988...Fifty-two cities in the central and eastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Highs of 100 degrees at Erie, PA and 104 degrees at Cleveland, OH established all- time records for those two locations. Highs of 101 degrees at Flint, MI, 105 degrees at Chicago, IL, and 106 degrees at Fort Wayne, IN equaled all-time records. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
Southwestern Ontario experienced a heat wave as the mercury soared to 104.4 degrees in Windsor and 100.8 degrees in London, the hottest day ever recorded in these cities. (The Weather Doctor)
26 June 1931…The temperature soared to 92 degrees at Anchorage, AK, the hottest reading of record to date for that city. (The Weather Doctor)
27 June 1915...The temperature at Fort Yukon, AK soared to 100 degrees to establish a state record. (The Weather Channel)
27 June 1988...The afternoon high of 107 degrees at Bismarck, ND was a record for the month of June, and Pensacola, FL equaled their June record with a reading of 101 degrees. Temperatures in the Great Lakes Region and the Ohio Valley dipped into the 40s. (The National Weather Summary)
27 June 1994...The temperature reached 122 degrees at the Waste Isolation Treatment Plant east of Carlsbad, NM to set the state high temperature record for New Mexico. In Oklahoma, the temperature at the mesonet station near Tipton reached 120 degrees, setting an all-time record for the Sooner State. (NCDC) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
28 June 1892...The temperature at Orogrande, UT soared to 116 degrees to establish a record for the Beehive State. This record was broken by one degree in July 1985. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders)
28 June 1954...The temperature at Camden, SC reached 111 degrees to establish an all-time high temperature record for the Palmetto State. (NCDC)
28 June 1960...The maximum 24-hour precipitation record for the Bluegrass State was established at Dunmor, KY when 10.40 inches fell. (NCDC)
28 June 1976...Temperature reached 96 degrees in Southampton, England's Mayflower Park for the highest temperature ever in June in England. (The Weather Doctor)
28 June 1980...The temperature at Wichita Falls, TX soared to 117 degrees, their highest reading of record. Daily highs were 110 degrees or above between the 24^th of June and the 3^rd of July. (The Weather Channel)
28 June 1994...Laughlin, NV reached 125 degrees, the state's all-time record high temperature. (Intellicast) The temperature at Monahans, TX reached 120 degrees to set a new high temperature record for the Lone Star State. (NCDC)

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