WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

6-10 July 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.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Sea surface temperatures in Atlantic basin monitored for tropical cyclone development -- An image of the sea surface temperatures across the North Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico at the end of June 2009 was produced from data collected by the MODIS and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS sensors onboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. While temperatures across the central and western Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic off the Southeast coast were sufficiently high to support tropical cyclones, the waters of the tropical Atlantic between Africa and the Americas remained too cool, which may have contributed to the lack of activity across the basin. [NASA Earth Observatory]
New online video of 2008 hurricane season unveiled -- The GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has developed and put online a video that shows the life cycles and travels of tropical cyclones (tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes) across the North Atlantic Basin during the 2008 hurricane season. Data were used from the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite)-12 satellite operated by NOAA and the Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite. [NASA GSFC]
Recovery from 1988 Yellowstone wildfires documented -- A series of four images obtained from NASA's Landsat-5 satellite between 1987 and 2008 shows the changes across Yellowstone National Park before and after the widespread wildfire of 1988 that was the result of dry conditions. The most recent image, taken last summer, shows considerable regrowth of the vegetation and a fading of the earlier burn scar. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Hand-held aerosol sensors to collect data over oceans -- A scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center working on the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) is attempting to establish the Maritime Aerosol Network (MAN) that would provide portable photometers to researchers on oceanographic research cruises so they could measure the concentrations of aerosols over the data-sparse oceans. [NASA Earth Science News Team]
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

Smoke across Amazon basin occurs annually -- Researchers at Hampton University have assembled a series of images from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite over the last four years to document the airborne particulate matter produced each September over South America's Amazon basin due to the fires set to clear the basin's rainforest. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Frozen carbon deposits seen as a threat to future climate -- Researchers from the US, Canada and Australia warn that the amount of carbon stored in permafrost or frozen soils and sediments across the arctic and boreal regions appears to be more than double previously estimated and could represent a major source of carbon dioxide and methane, climate-changing greenhouse gases if melted. [EurekAlert!]
Forests in Pacific Northwest capable of storing more carbon -- Forestry researchers at Oregon State University involved with the North American Carbon Program claim that the forests of Oregon and northern California could theoretically store more than double the current amount of carbon. These researchers believe that improved forest management could increase carbon storage and help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the future. [EurekAlert!]
New type of El Niño could produce more landfalling hurricanes -- Climatologists at the Georgia Institute of Technology hypothesize that the types of El Niño events recently occurring could be evolving into a new type that permits a greater than average number of Atlantic hurricanes, along with a higher potential for landfall. While El Niño events are associated with warming of the eastern Pacific and fewer Atlantic hurricanes, this new type is identified as El Niño Modoki (from the Japanese meaning "similar, but different"), has warming in the central equatorial Pacific. [USA Today] [EurekAlert!]
Five thoughts about hurricane research -- A scientist who specializes in hurricane research with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Bjorn Lambrigtsen, recently summarized his thoughts concerning the development of hurricanes and other tropical cyclones. [NASA JPL]
Sulfates can affect the warming properties of atmospheric soot particles -- Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography who measured atmospheric aerosols over the Riverside, CA and Mexico City (Mexico) metropolitan areas have found that sulfates that have become mixed with atmospheric soot (or black carbon) change the optical properties of the soot, causing an amplification of the warming of the atmosphere. By themselves, sulfates had been thought to have helped contribute to cooling. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Circadian clock of plants used to help improve climate models -- A international team of researchers report that their study of the circadian clock of plants from a molecular viewpoint has permitted them to help improve climate change models and carbon dioxide estimates, as the researchers are better able to see how plant species are able to sense time so as to survive and reproduce at appropriate times. [EurekAlert!]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Ancient ice ages could have been limited by plants -- Researchers from Carnegie Institution and Yale University suggest the presence of terrestrial plant species over the last 25 million years helped stabilize the climate by holding atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in a relatively narrow range, preventing runaway "icehouse" conditions that would have resulted in a widespread global ice age if carbon dioxide would have dropped too low. [EurekAlert!]
Northward creep seen in tropical rainfall feature -- Oceanographers at the University of Washington analyzing sediment cores from lakes and lagoons on several equatorial islands have discovered a northward drift in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) for more than 300 years, due to what they believe is a warming planet. These researchers feel that this northward creep in the ITCZ will impact nearly one billion people across the tropics and subtropics because of the freshwater gotten from the bands of heavy rain accompanying the ITCZ. [EurekAlert!]
Western Nordic Sea has least ice since 13th century -- Using a variety of historical records and ice cores, researchers at Denmark's Niels Bohr Institute who reconstructed an 800-year sequence of the sea ice extent over the seawaters between Greenland and Svalbard report that the areal coverage of the current sea ice is the smallest since the 13th century. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

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:

6 July 1928...A hailstorm at Potter, NE produced a stone that was 5.5 inches in diameter, and seventeen inches in circumference, weighing a pound and a half. At the time, it was the world's largest hailstone. (David Ludlum) (Wikipedia)
6 July 1921…The mercury hit 104 degrees at Ville Marie, Quebec, marking Quebec's highest temperature on record. (The Weather Doctor)
6 July 1936...Steele, ND reached 121 degrees, the state record. Moorhead, MN reached 114 degrees to set a record high temperature for the Gopher State. (Intellicast) (NCDC).
6 July 1988...Thirty-six cities in the north central and northeastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Afternoon highs of 98 degrees at International Falls, MN and 101 degrees at Flint, MI equaled all-time records. Highs of 96 degrees at Muskegon, MI and 97 degrees at Buffalo, NY were records for July. (The National Weather Summary)
6 July 1994...An impressive 21.10 inches of rain fell at Americus, GA to establish a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the Peach State. (NCDC)
7 July 1889…The greatest 20-minute rainfall ever recorded on Earth occurred when 8.1 inches of rain fell on Curtea-de-Arges, Romania. (The Weather Doctor)
7 July 1905...The mercury soared to 127 degrees at Parker, AZ to tie the state record established at Fort Mohave on 15 June 1896. (The Weather Channel)
7 July 1982…France's hottest day on record occurred at Le Luc near St. Tropez when the high reached 108.9 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
7 July 1988...Thirty-eight cities in the north central and northeastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Youngstown, OH hit 100 degrees, and for the second day in a row, Flint, MI reached 101 degrees, equaling all-time records for those two cities. (The National Weather Summary)
8 July 1936...The temperature hit an all-time record high of 106 degrees at the Central Park Observatory in New York City, a record which lasted until La Guardia Airport hit 107 degrees on 3 July 1966. (The Weather Channel)
8 July 1989...Sixteen cities in the central and western U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. The high of 103 degrees at Denver, CO equaled their record for July, and a 110-degree reading at Rapid City, SD equaled their all-time record high. Denver reported a record five straight days of 100 degree heat, and Scottsbluff, NE reported a record eight days in a row of 100 degree weather. (The National Weather Summary)
8 July 2003…Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf, recorded a dewpoint of 95 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
9 July 1914…Finland's hottest day on record occurred when the temperature at Turku, Finland reached 96.6 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
9 July 1950...The town of York, NE was deluged with 13.15 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a record for the Cornhusker State. (The Weather Channel)
9 July 1968...Columbus, MS received 15.68 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record. (The Weather Channel)
9 July 1988...The percentage of total area in the country in the grips of severe to extreme drought reached 43 percent, the fourth highest total of record. The record of 61 percent occurred during the summer of 1934. (The National Weather Summary)
10 July 1913...The mercury hit 134 degrees at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley, CA, the highest temperature reading of record for the North American continent. Sandstorm conditions accompanied the heat. The high the previous day was 129 degrees, following a morning low of 93 degrees. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
10 July 1936...Afternoon high temperatures of 112 degrees at Martinsburg, WV, 109 degrees at Cumberland, MD and Frederick, MD, 110 degrees at Runyon, NJ, and 111 degrees at Phoenixville, PA, established all-time record highs for those four states, and marked the hottest day of record for the Middle Atlantic Coast Region. (The Weather Channel)
11 July 1888... The temperature at Bennett, CO reached 118 degrees, setting a record high temperature for the Centennial State. (NCDC)
11 July 1911…The highest temperature ever recorded in Maine was at North Bridgton, with a reading of 105 degrees. (NCDC)
11 July 1936…The temperature at St. Albans, Manitoba reached the provincial high temperature record of 112°F, while the temperature at Atikokan, Ontario peaked at 108 degrees, tying the highest temperature ever in Ontario. (The Weather Doctor)
12 July 1900...The record high state temperature reading of 114 degrees in Wyoming was reached at Basin. This record has since been eclipsed in 1983 by a 115-degree reading. (Intellicast)
12 July 1910…Cherrapunji in India's northeastern Meghalaya State — one of the rainiest places on Earth — recorded 839 mm (33 inches) of rainfall on this day. (The Weather Doctor)
12-14 July 1936…The hottest three-day period in US history was recorded, with average temperatures of 88.5 degrees Fahrenheit; the second warmest such period had occurred three days earlier. (The Weather Doctor)

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