10-14 May 2010

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2010 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 30 August 2010. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• After spending one hour and fourteen minutes below the horizon, the sun will rise at Barrow, AK early Monday morning (3:00 AM ADT on 10 May 2010) and remain above the local horizon for the next 12 weeks, before going below the horizon for nearly one hour on 2 August 2010 (at 2:04 AM ADT).
• Climate science integrity defended -- This past week, 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences from 53 disciplines, including 11 Nobel laureates, submitted a letter with the title "Climate Change and the Integrity of Science" in the journal Science in which they defended the rigor and objectivity of climate science. In addition to explaining the scientific research process, they also condemned the recent political attacks on climate scientists. [EurekAlert!]
• Hurricane season begins in the eastern North Pacific -- The 2010 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific Ocean basin begins on Saturday, 15 May 2010. The hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico will begin in two weeks on 1 June. The official hurricane seasons in both basins end on 30 November 2010. NOAA has declared the week of 23-29 May 2010 to be Hurricane Awareness Week across the nation.
• Monitoring the excessive rains and record flooding in middle Tennessee -- Slow moving rainshowers and thunderstorms that moved across the Tennessee and Kentucky on the first weekend of May were responsible for an excessive rainfall event that resulted in severe flooding across middle Tennessee. Atmospheric and hydrologic scientists have been collecting information from various sensors to study this event that claimed more than two dozen lives and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of flood-related damage or loss.
• A map generated by the Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center from data collected by NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite shows the distribution of precipitation that accumulated over Tennessee and Kentucky on 1-2 May 2010. [NASA Earth Observatory] [Editor's note: An explanation of the discrepancies between satellite-estimated precipitation totals and "ground-truth" rain gauge totals is provided. EJH]
• Comparison of before and after-storm images of the region generated from data collected by the MODIS instruments on NASA's Terra satellite show the widespread flooding of the main stems and tributaries of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers that followed the excessive rain event. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Water specialists from the US Geological Survey's Tennessee Water Science Center have been analyzing the streamflow data collected from the USGS-operated stream gages along the various tributaries to the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers following the torrential rains at the end of April. With over 13 inches of rain from the storm, several of the stream gauges around Nashville set record or near record streamflows and river heights. [USGS Newsroom] [Editor's note: This site provides links to the historic flooding in middle Tennessee as well as a link to the USGS description of the meaning of a "100-year flood." EJH]
• New field season starts for "aquanauts" -- During this upcoming week, a new team of "aquanauts" will spend nearly two weeks in NOAA’s Aquarius, the world’s only permanent underwater laboratory in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, as part of NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations mission where the aquanauts will test exploration concepts and conduct life sciences experiments in a low gravity underwater environment that closely resembles space. [NOAA News]

• National weather and climate reviewed for April 2010 -- Scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported that their analysis of preliminary data reveals April 2010 across the United States was warmer and drier than normal. The monthly April 2010 temperature averaged across the coterminous US for was more than two Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average temperatures. Furthermore, April 2010 was the fourteenth warmest in the record extending back to 1895 when comprehensive climate records became available nationwide. States across the Northeast, the Midwest and the central Plains had much above average temperatures, while California experienced much below average temperatures. April precipitation across the coterminous US was one quarter of an inch below the 20th century average, with states along the Eastern Seaboard from Massachusetts southward to South Carolina and Louisiana being much drier than average. Sections of the northern Plains and the West Coast were wetter than average in April, as Oregon had much above average precipitation. The Rutgers Snow Lab reported that the extent of snow cover across North America for April 2010 was the smallest for any April since records began in 1966. [NOAA News]

• A coop weather station with a lengthy uninterrupted record helps log climate change -- Dedicated weather observers who maintained the cooperative weather observing station at the Mohonk Preserve in southeastern New York State's Shawangunk Mountains on a daily basis without interruption for 114 years have provided a rare glimpse of possible changes in climate, since the instrument location and the surroundings have remained unchanged since 1896. More than 42,226 daily temperature readings have been made. The daily temperature and precipitation data recorded by the instruments have been supplemented by observations of phenological events, which can be used to decipher changes in climate. [Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory]
• British summer is shown to be "advancing" -- Geographers at the United Kingdom's University of Sheffield have examined the phenological records of the first bloom date of several early summer flowering plant species and the first occurrences of "summer" temperatures since 1954, finding an advancement of the start of summer temperatures during the last few years by over two weeks from corresponding starts in the mid-20th century. [University of Sheffield]
• Mapping of surface temperature anomalies from satellite data -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have assembled an animation of monthly land surface temperature anomalies that commences in March 2000 and runs through March 2010. This animation is generated from a sequence of maps derived from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite that show the land surface temperature anomalies (the arithmetic difference between observed and 2000-2008 average temperatures) across the land surfaces. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Monitoring the global and seasonal patterns of wildfires from space -- The NASA Earth Observatory mission has assembled an animated sequence of global maps that show the daily average density of wildfires across all the continents for each month since March 2000. The data used to produce these maps were obtained from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra Satellite. In addition to human activity, the spatial patterns of fire activity are also related to other factors, some of which may be seasonally dependent, such as precipitation, aridity and lightning. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Stream water chemistry helps detect thawing permafrost -- University of Michigan researchers working in northern Alaska have used new method for monitoring the thawing of Arctic permafrost by analyzing the relative abundance of several chemical tracers in the region's stream water. [University of Michigan News]
• 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]

• Exploring the Sun's weather with a weather satellite -- NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center recently released a four-minute educational video titled "A Weather Satellite Watches the Sun" that describes how instruments onboard NOAA's GOES satellites in geosynchronous orbit around Earth monitor solar activity and space weather. [NASA GSFC]
• Satellites aid in tracking ash plume from Iceland volcano -- Data collected from instruments onboard NASA's fleet of satellites continue to aid forecasters who have been tracking the volcanic plume from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano since mid April. [NASA Headquarters] A set of maps and satellite images of the volcanic plume from the various sensors are available. [NASA GSFC & Earth Observatory]
• Studying the gas molecules that heat planet Earth --Chemists at NASA’s Ames Research Center and Purdue University have been studying the molecular properties of various atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and perfluorocarbons, focusing on the radiative efficiency of these molecules to absorb Earth’s radiated heat. They also suggest design strategies that could be used to create benign alternatives to some of the synthetic gases that would reduce the radiative efficiency of these gases. [NASA Ames]

• Ancient leaves may provide a new perspective of future climate -- Biogeochemists at Penn State University, the Smithsonian Institute and University of California, Santa Cruz have examined the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 isotopes in ancient leaves to see if they can ascertain the changes in the carbon cycle during these times several million years ago and, ultimately, estimate past temperatures and other environmental conditions. [EurekAlert!]
• Mammal diversity patterns were due to climate change and mountain building -- University of Michigan researchers who studied the diversity of rodent species in the Rocky Mountains during the Miocene Epoch (23 million to 5 million years ago) suggest that the patterns of mammal diversity associated with elevation have increased and decreased over Earth's history since these patterns appear to arise from interactions between climate change and mountain building. [University of Michigan News]

• New measurement method used to determine Antarctic ice flow -- Researchers from Germany, Norway, Austria and the United Kingdom recently reported on a new geophysical measurement method called "vibroseismics" that generates seismic waves directly on an ice surface, permitting the measurement of the ice structure and the ice flow characteristics of the Antarctic ice sheet. The data collected have been used in ice mass balance models designed to predict future sea level changes. [EurekAlert!]

• Future wet-bulb temperatures could reach lethal heat stress levels -- Researchers at Purdue University and Australia University of New South Wales warn that if current projected increases in air temperature increase during the 21st century, the wet bulb temperatures, which are an indication of atmospheric humidity and ultimately to heat stress at high values, would also increase to peak levels above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius). Such levels would induce hyperthermia in humans and other mammals and could be lethal. Using a climate model, the researchers generated a map showing likely locations where these lethal levels would occur are in regions with a majority of the human population. [Purdue University News]

• Multidisciplinary approach used to investigate an ancient environment -- Collaboration between a paleontologist, a disease ecologist and a geographer at Emory University was able to deduce the environment of a ancient lake approximately 50 million years ago from a limestone slab obtained from Fossil Butte National Monument in southwestern Wyoming that contained prehistoric fish trails made by an extinct fish. The researchers conclude that the subtropical lake in the early Eocene Epoch could have had sufficient oxygen levels for fish to survive. [Emory University]

• Strategy designed to limit global warming outlined -- Two noted climate researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Yangyang Xu, recently identified three avenues that would need to be taken simultaneously by which countries can avoid reaching the warming threshold, a point beyond which unmanageable negative consequences for society could occur according to many scientists. These steps would include stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, balancing the removal of aerosols that have warming effects with those with cooling effects and reductions in concentrations of various greenhouse gases such as methane and hydrofluorocarbons. [EurekAlert!]
• Building food security considered in the face of climate change -- A recent international conference called " Building Food Security in the Face of Climate Change" was held by the Mega Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in Nairobi to assist leading climate change researchers, policy makers and development agencies from many nations focus on how to build food security at a time when climate change causes increased challenges to agriculture. [University of Copenhagen]
• 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.

• 10 May 1910...A meteorograph ascent of an instrumented Weather Bureau kite to 23,835 feet from Mount Weather, VA set the altitude record for the site. The ascent, which had a kite with instruments to measure atmospheric conditions aloft, used 10 kites in tandem and 8.5 miles of kite wire. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 10 May 1966...Morning lows of 21 degrees at Bloomington-Normal and Aurora established an Illinois state record for the month of May. Snow flurries were reported at Kansas City, MO and Chicago, IL (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
• 10-11 May 1986...Bangkok, Thailand received 15.79 inches of rain in 24-hours, which was a national record. (The Weather Doctor)
• 11 May 1966...The 1.6 inch-snow at Chicago, IL was their latest measurable snow of record. Previously the record was 3.7 inches on the 1^stand 2^nd of May set in 1940. (The Weather Channel)
• 11 May 2003...A total of 4.63 inches of rain fell at Nashville, TN, breaking the previous 24-hour record for the month. (The Weather Doctor)
• 12 May 1916...Plumb Point, Jamaica reported 17.80 inches of rain in 15 minutes, which set a world record. (The Weather Doctor)
• 13 May 1930...A man was killed when caught in an open field during a hailstorm 36 miles northwest of Lubbock, TX. This event was the first, and perhaps the only, authentic death by hail in U.S. weather records. (David Ludlum)
• 13 May 1992...Record late season snow ended over the Tanana Valley and Yukon Uplands in Alaska. This storm set two records at Fairbanks. The 9.4 inches of snow from the storm was by far the greatest May snow on record, shattering the previous record of 4.5 inches set on 13 May 1964. The total water content of the melted snow and rain was also a new one-day record for May (0.78 Inches). Snowfall in excess of two feet occurred at elevations above 2000 feet. (Intellicast)
• 14 May 1834...The greatest snowstorm ever to occur in May hit the Northern Atlantic coastal states. The hills around Newbury, VT were covered with up to 24 inches of snow and the higher elevations around Haverhill, NH received up to three feet. (Intellicast)
• 14 May 1896...The mercury plunged to 10 degrees below zero at Climax, CO, the lowest reading of record for the U.S. during the month of May. (David Ludlum) This record has since been broken in May 1964 by a reading of 15 degrees below zero at White Mountain in California. (NCDC)
• 14 May 2001...A storm stalled south of Nova Scotia drenching Halifax with 3.89 inches of rain, the greatest daily May rainfall since records began in 1871. (The Weather Doctor)
• 15 May 1968...Only tornado of record to have ever touched down in Alaska was spotted near Anchorage. (The Weather Doctor)
• 16 May 1917...Marquette, MI had its latest opening of navigation on Lake Superior in history. (Intellicast)
• 16 May 1924...The temperature at Blitzen, OR soared to 108 degrees to set a state record for the month of May. The record was later tied at Pelton Dam on the 31 May 1986. (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.