WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

3-7 August 2009

ITEMS OF INTEREST --

In the Land of the Midnight Sun -- The sun set at Barrow, AK early this morning (1:58 AM AKDT on 2 August 2009), marking the first time in nearly 12 weeks that the sun has gone below the local horizon since 10 May 2009. However, the sun remained below the horizon for slightly more than one hour before rising at 3:10 AM on Monday. On each day until mid-November, the length of night will increase at Barrow. On 18 November 2009, the sun will remain below the horizon for a stretch of two months.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Satellite shows beginning signs of an El Niño event -- An image of the sea surface temperature anomaly (arithmetic difference between observed and long-term average temperatures) across the Pacific Ocean as obtained from data collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) instrument onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite early last week shows anomalously warm surface waters spreading eastward across the eastern equatorial Pacific. This sea-surface temperature pattern indicates the development of an El Niño event, an anomalous large-scale atmospheric and oceanic circulation regime that has been predicted by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. However, the head of the Ocean Sciences Branch at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cautions that these conditions do not necessarily indicate a major ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) event for this upcoming boreal winter. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Future earth science cooperation agreement made -- The top officials from NASA and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) recently signed a cooperative agreement between the two agencies for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, a space-borne core observatory that will monitor planetary precipitation as an integral part of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. [NASA Headquarters]
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

Monitoring carbon dioxide emissions needs improvements -- A new National Research Council letter report made to the administrator of NASA, Charles F. Bolden Jr., claims that current methods used for estimating greenhouse gas emissions have limitations, making the monitoring of carbon dioxide emissions and the verification of an international climate treaty difficult. The NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which failed to launch last February, would have provided a short-term means of monitoring greenhouse gas emissions from space. [EurekAlert!]
Activity from an African volcano seen from space -- An image made last week by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite shows a small plume of ash and steam emanating from the Nyiragongo Volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Iraqi dust storm from space -- An image made at the end of last week from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows dust plumes being carried across the Persian Gulf and surrounding countries from a large dust storm in Iraq. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Asteroid Watch website unveiled -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently unveiled its new website entitled "Asteroid Watch" that will provide the public and scientists with a centralized information resource for those asteroids and comets approaching the vicinity of Earth. [NASA JPL News]
Comets colliding with Earth unlikely cause of mass extinctions -- Research conducted at the University of Washington research indicates that comets or asteroids colliding with the Earth in the past do not appear as likely candidates for many of the mass extinction events. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Yosemite's large trees are declining -- A comparison between the tree records from the 1930s and the 1990s made by scientists with the US Geological Survey and University of Washington indicates that the number of large-diameter trees in California's Yosemite National Park decreased by nearly one-quarter, possibly the result of warmer climatic conditions that developed across the region during the 20th century. [USGS]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

New sea level rise predictions are made -- Researchers from the United Kingdom, the United States and Switzerland made predictions on the amount of sea level rise by the end of the 21st century based upon their reconstruction of sea-level fluctuations over the past 22,000 years from analysis of fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements. Their predictions indicate a rise in sea level ranging between 7 and 82 cm, corresponding to the projections of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of 2007. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation]
Increases in wildfires are anticipated in future decades -- Using the statistics generated by climate models, atmospheric scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and their colleagues expect that the frequency of wildfires will increase in many areas across the Western States during the next several decades as regional air temperatures are projected to increase. The increased number of wildfires could adversely affect air quality. [EurekAlert!]
Using a new supercomputer for climate science -- The $21.4 million Chinook supercomputer, reported to the fastest and most powerful computer developed to date, has recently been commissioned by the US Department of Energy for use at its Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on the campus of the department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for use in computational processing for a variety of areas including climate science. [Pacific National Laboratory]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Dating the age of the Amazon River -- Analysis of sediment records from the Amazon basin have led researchers at the United Kingdom's University of Liverpool, the Netherlands' University of Amsterdam and Brazil's national oil company to the discovery that the Amazon River drainage is approximately 11 million years old, attaining its present shape nearly 2.4 million years ago. These river sediment records serve to in the assessment of the basin's paleoclimate. [EurekAlert!]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

"Safe" ozone levels may remain unhealthy -- A new study conducted by a researcher at the University of California, Davis found that approximately six hours of exposure to ozone concentrations at levels currently considered safe under The National Ambient Air Quality Standard had a significant negative effect on lung function, even among health nonsmokers. [USA Today]
Restoration-based environmental markets may not improve ecosystem health -- Scientists with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological Laboratory warn that because of insufficient scientific understanding of the restoration process, methods for restoring ecosystems may not deliver the desired environmental improvements as marketed. [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]
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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

3 August 1898...Philadelphia, PA had one of its worst thunderstorms ever when 5.84 inches fell in just 2 hours. The hydraulic pressure in the city sewers due to the force of the accumulated runoff caused overflows in toilets, basins and sinks to rise to second-floor levels in some cases. (Intellicast) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
3 August 1914...Temperature reached an all-time August high of 96 degrees for Calgary, Alberta. (The Weather Doctor)
3 August 1970...Hurricane Celia made landfall near Port Aransas on the Texas coast, producing wind gusts to 161 mph at Corpus Christi, and estimated wind gusts of 180 mph at Arkansas Pass. Even at Del Rio, 250 miles inland, Celia produced wind gusts to 89 mph. The hurricane was the most destructive of record along the Texas coast causing 454 million dollars damage as 8950 homes were destroyed on the Coastal Bend. Celia also claimed eleven lives and injured 466 people. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
3 August 1987...Beckley, WV established an all-time record with an afternoon high of 93 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
3 August 1990...Highest temperature recorded in the United Kingdom prior to 2003 heat-wave was 98.8 degrees at Cheltenham, England: (The Weather Doctor)
3 August 1995...South Bend, IN received 4.83 inches of rain in 24 hours to set the city's greatest daily rainfall record. (Intellicast)
4 August 1881...The highest temperature recorded anywhere in Europe was 122 degrees Fahrenheit reported at Seville, Spain. (NCDC)
4 August 1930...The temperature at Moorefield, WV soared to 112 degrees to establish a state record, having reached 110 degrees the previous day. This new record for the Mountain State was subsequently tied in July 1936. (The Weather Channel)
4 August 1960...The Vostok station in Antarctica recorded a record low temperature of 127 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale, which remained the lowest recorded global temperature until 1983. (The Weather Doctor)
4 August 1961...Spokane, WA reached an all-time record high temperature of 108 degrees. Kalispell, MT set an all-time record with a reading of 105 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
5 August 1843...A spectacular cloudburst at Chester Creek, near Philadelphia, PA turned the small creeks and streams entering the Delaware River into raging torrents. As much as sixteen inches of rain fell in just three hours at Concord, which still stands as the greatest amount of precipitation in a three-hour span in the U.S. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
5 August 1961...The temperature at Ice Harbor Dam, WA soared to 118 degrees to equal the state record established at Wahluke on 24 July 1928. The afternoon high of 111 degrees at Havre, MT was an all-time record for that location. (The Weather Channel)
5 August 1988...Floods ravaged parts of Sudan during August, the result of 8.27 inches of rain that fell in Khartoum in 13 hours on the 4^th and 5^th. The previous 24-hour record at Khartoum was 3.46 inches. More than one million people were made homeless. At least 96 died in Sudan's worst flooding since 1946. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
5 August 1994...Fairbanks, AK soared to 93 degrees for the highest ever August temperature. (Intellicast)
5-6 August 1959...A bucket survey showed that thunderstorms dropped 16.70 inches of rain on parts of Decatur County, IA. The total was accepted as Iowa's 24-hour rainfall record. (The Weather Channel)
6 August 1905...Princeton, IN received 10.50 inches of rain, which established a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the Hoosier State. (NCDC)
6 August 1918...Unusually hot weather began to overspread the Atlantic Coast States, from the Carolinas to southern New England. The temperature soared to an all-time record high of 106 degrees at Washington, DC, and Cumberland and Keedysville hit 109 degrees to establish a state record for Maryland. (David Ludlum)
6 August 1947...Sault Ste. Marie, MI hit 98 degrees, equaling the highest temperature ever recorded at that location. (Intellicast)
6 August 1987...Afternoon thunderstorms deluged Milwaukee, WI, breaking all previous rainfall records for the city. Among the records: 1.10 inches in 5 minutes, 3.06 inches in 1 hour, 5.24 inches in 2 hours, 6.24 in 6 hours and 6.84 inches in 24 hours. Floodwaters were four feet deep at the Milwaukee County Stadium, and floodwaters filled the basement of the main terminal at the airport. Flooding caused 5.9 million dollars damage, and claimed the life of one person. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
7 August 1918...Philadelphia, PA established an all-time record with a high of 106 degrees. New York City experienced its warmest day and night with a low of 82 degrees and a high of 102 degrees. Afternoon highs of 108 degrees at Flemington, NJ and Somerville, NJ established state records for the month of August. (The Weather Channel) (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
7 August 1949...The hottest day on record for Winnipeg, Manitoba occurred when the temperature reached 105 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
7 August 1969...Cuba's hottest day on record when the temperature reached 101.5 degrees at Guantánamo, Cuba. (The Weather Doctor)
7 August 1983...The temperature at Thunder Bay, Ontario reached an all-time record high of 104 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
7-8 August 1995...Lockington Dam, OH recorded 10.75 inches of rain, establishing a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the Buckeye State. (NCDC)
7 August 2004...Iceland's hottest August day on record as the temperature at Skaftafell, Iceland reached 84.4 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
8 August 1878...The temperature at Denver, CO soars to an all-time record high of 105 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
8 August 1983...The temperature at Big Horn Basin, WY reached 115 degrees to establish a state record for the Cowboy State. (The Weather Channel)
9 August 1930...The temperature reached 113 degrees at Perryville, TN to establish an all-time maximum temperature record for the Volunteer State. (NCDC) (Intellicast)
9 August 1960...Vancouver (British Columbia) International Airport's hottest day on record as the mercury hit 91.4 degrees (The Weather Doctor)
9 August 2003...The Bavarian city of Roth, Germany had a temperature that hit 105 degrees, a new national record. (The Weather Doctor)

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