WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

14-18 May 2012

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2012 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 27 August 2012. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Zenithal Sun -- This week marks one of the two times during the year when the noontime sun is directly overhead to residents on the Big Island (on about 15 May at South Cape, and 18-19 May at Hilo), while those on Oahu (Honolulu metropolitan area) will experience the noon sun at the zenith in approximately one more week (25-27 May). The sun will again be over the Big Island during the last week of July. [US Naval Observatory, Data Services]
Hurricane season begins in the eastern North Pacific -- The 2012 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific Ocean basin begins on Tuesday, 15 May 2012. 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 2011. NOAA has declared the week of 27 May-2 June 2012 to be Hurricane Awareness Week across the nation.
Hurricane re-analysis project for North Atlantic revises list for 1930s -- Scientists at NOAA's National Hurricane Center and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory are undertaking the Atlantic Hurricane Database Re-analysis Project, an effort designed to extend and revise the Center's North Atlantic hurricane database (or HURDAT) that commences in 1851. Recently they have reanalyzed the 1931 through 1935 seasons, adding 14 newly discovered tropical storms to the list and removing four existing storms. conducted a and revisiting storms in more recent years, information on tropical cyclones is revised using an enhanced collection of historical meteorological data in the context of today's scientific understanding of hurricanes and analysis techniques. [NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

National weather and climate reviewed for April 2012 -- Scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that their analysis of preliminary data indicates the monthly average temperature for the 48 coterminous states was 3.5 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century (1901-2000) average, which made April 2012 the third warmest April since 1895 when comprehensive climate records became available nationwide. States in the southern Plains and northern New England had much above average temperatures for April. Interestingly, eight states (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia) reported statewide average April temperatures that were lower than their March temperatures, since this past March was exceedingly warm across most of this region.
April monthly precipitation across the lower 48 states was approximately 0.2 inches below the 20th-century monthly average, as states in the Mid-South and Midwest had below or much below average precipitation totals. On the other hand, the West Coast States and those across the northern Rockies and the northern Plains had above average April precipitation. The April 2012 snow cover across the 48 coterminous United States was the third smallest on record. [NCDC State of the Climate]
Many sections of the nation have been experiencing dry weather over the first four months of 2012, which has resulted in a continuation of severe to extreme drought conditions across the Southeast and the southern Plains. [NOAA Climate Services]
Canadian weather and climate in 2011 -- Scientists at Environment Canada recently reported that preliminary data indicate the national average temperature for the calendar year 2011 was 1.5 Celsius degrees (2.7 Fahrenheit degrees) above the 1961-1990 average, making the past year the eighth warmest year on record since nationwide climate records began in 1948. The warmest year on record across Canada was the previous year (2010) when the national annual temperature was 3.0 Celsius degrees above normal. Annual temperatures for 2011 across most of northern and central Canada were at least 2 Celsius degrees above normal, while sections of British Columbia and southern Alberta experienced near normal annual temperatures. Nationwide precipitation across Canada during 2011 was slightly below the long-term average, as the year was the 15th driest in the 64-year period of record. Most of northern Canada, especially across the Canadian Archipelago, the Yukon and Northwest Territories and Nunavut, had annual precipitation totals that were 20 percent below normal. Coastal sections of British Columbia, sections of southern Manitoba and the Maritimes had nearly 20 percent above average precipitation. [Environment Canada]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Satellite measurements and global climate model output brought closer together -- A recent study that was conducted by atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington indicates that a correction to the satellite temperature record of the troposphere over the last 30 years produced by the University of Alabama-Huntsville have resulted in an elimination of many of the differences between these records and the statistics generated by several well known climate models. The correction to the satellite record involved an adjustment as how the University of Alabama-Huntsville handled the NOAA-9 satellite temperature record for the mid-troposphere in the mid-1980s. [University of Washington Today]
Cuts to national observation programs could imperil weather and climate forecasts -- A new report from the National Research Council warns that a rapid decline in the nation's Earth observation capabilities could occur in the near future, which would result in less accurate weather and climate forecasts. The nation's observational capabilities could fall to only 25 percent of current levels because many of the nation's observational satellites are approaching the end of their expected lifetimes and budget shortfalls have meant that new satellite missions have been running behind schedule or remained unfunded. [Climate Central]
A study of the chemistry of thunderstorms undertaken -- Researchers from NASA's research centers and the National Center for Atmospheric Research are about to participate in the 6-week Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) field campaign in Kansas to explore the impact that large thunderstorms have on the concentration of ozone and other substances in the upper troposphere. NASA's airborne DC-8 Earth Science laboratory will be used to collect atmospheric samples. [NASA Langley Research Center]
New carbon-counting instrument readied for flight -- Scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently completed construction of the science instrument that will be placed onboard NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) spacecraft to study the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. This instrument, consisting of three high resolution spectrometers, will undergo a battery of tests in Arizona. The OCO-2 spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in the summer of 2014 from Vandenberg AFB in California. [NASA JPL]
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

Warming of the Arctic appears to favor European weather extremes -- A meteorologist at Germany's GEOMAR | Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel claims that the frequency and magnitude of recent weather extremes across Europe including summer heat waves and winter cold spells appear to be closely linked to recent Arctic warming that has accelerated the retreat of Arctic sea ice and the warming of the ocean surface. Changes in atmospheric circulation patterns could result that favor the weather extremes. [Alfred Wegener Institute]
Pumping groundwater would lead to sea level rise -- Researchers from the Netherlands and Taiwan claim that by 2050, worldwide pumping of groundwater for irrigation, public consumption and industrial uses would cause a global rise in sea level by approximately 0.8 mm per year. The researchers noted that the sea level rise attributed to groundwater pumping was countered between about 1970 and 1990 by dams that trapped water before the water returned to the oceans. [American Geophysical Union]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Mild Amazon fire season foreseen -- NASA scientists and their colleagues from academia have developed a new fire severity forecast model that uses data collected from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ) sensors on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. Using guidance from this model, the scientists predict a mild fire season for 2012 over the Amazon Basin that covers parts of Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. [NASA GSFC]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Bacteria lost from farm fields along with wind erosion -- Soil scientists from the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service have found that strong winds not only are capable of carrying away soil particles, but also those beneficial microbes that help build soil, recycle nutrients and detoxify contaminants. These scientists based their conclusions on a study involving the use of a DNA sequencing technique used on several types of agricultural soils subjected to a wind tunnel experiment. Significant loss of microbial diversity in farm fields could be caused by wind erosion. [American Society of Agronomy News Releases]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Prehistoric climate changes mapped in the Yukon Territory -- A group of scientists have been reconstructing the climatic and environmental changes over the last 8000 years in the water-level of a lake in the boreal forest in Canada's southeastern Yukon Territory. The researchers collected two sediment cores from Rantin Lake and analyzed the sedimentary, geochemical and macrofossil records of these cores.[University of Pittsburgh News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Poll shows drop in support for climate change action -- A new public survey conducted by Stanford University researchers have found that although the majority of Americans (62 percent) continue to support many of the federal government's actions to mitigate the effects of increasing global temperature, their support had dropped by approximately ten percentage points over the past two years, with the largest drop occurring among those who distrust climate scientists. [Stanford University 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]

COMPARATIVE PLANETOLOGY

Martian sand movement measured -- A team at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has developed a method for data processing that has allowed scientists to measure movement of sand on the Martian surface by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The researchers found that winds are a major agent for evolution of the landscape on Mars. [CalTech Media]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

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)
17 May 1997...Two inches of snow fell at Herman, MI, marking the last measurable snow for the 1996-1997 snow season. The 384.0 inches for this just concluded snow season broke a state snowfall record that was set the previous 1995-1996 season of 347.0 inches. The average snowfall at Herman is 239.7 inches. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
17 May 1979...A reading of 12 degrees at Mauna Kea Observatory (elevation 13,770 feet) established an all-time record low temperature for the state of Hawaii. (The Weather Channel)
18 May 1980...Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupted, ejecting smoke and ash to a height of 63,000 feet. The smoke plume rose to a height of 80,000 feet. The ground was covered with heavy ash to the immediate northeast and visibility was reduced to less than one mile for a downwind distance of 400 miles. Five deaths were caused and over 2000 people were evacuated due to mudslides and flooding when the snowpack melted. Small particles in the cloud reached the East Coast in 3 days and circled the world in 19 days. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
18 May 1960...Salt Lake City, UT received an inch of snow, marking their latest measurable snowfall of record. (The Weather Channel)
19 May 1780...The infamous "dark day" in New England tradition occurred as noon was nearly as dark as night. Chickens went to roost, and many persons were fearful of divine wrath. Forest fires to the west of New England caused the phenomena. (David Ludlum)
19 May 1955...Lake Maloya, NM received 11.28 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record. (The Weather Channel)
19 May 1962...An all-time May record was set when the temperature climbed to 99 degrees at Central Park in New York City. (Intellicast)
20 May 1996...Bridgeport, CT soared to 97 degrees for its highest temperature on record in May. (Intellicast)

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