WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

29 July-2 August 2013

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2013 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 2 September 2013. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

A hot July 1852 in New York made for an interesting news article -- An article published over this past weekend in "The New York Times" describes and analyzes a colorful article under the headline "The Streets in Midsummer" that appeared in the 27 July 1852 issue of its predecessor, "The New-York Daily Times." The article appearing 162 years ago chronicled the effect that temperatures approaching 90 degrees (Fahrenheit) had upon the residents of New York City. The current article leads one to reflect on how the media have described weather extremes that have affected life in our nation's history even back in the 19th century. [New York Times] (Special thanks to Dr. Kelly Redmond, regional climatologist for the Western Regional Climate Center, for forwarding this link. EJH)
A celebration -- Thursday, 1 August 2013, is the ancient Celtic holiday of Lammas that corresponds to one of the cross quarter days, lying nearly halfway between the summer solstice (21 June 2013) and the autumnal equinox (22 September 2013). This holiday, also known as "loaf-mass day", originally marked the first wheat harvest of the year in the British Isles. [Editor's note: Next Tuesday, 6 August 2013 represents the exact halfway point between the dates of the solstice and equinox. EJH]
In the Land of the Midnight Sun -- The sun will set at Barrow, AK early Friday morning (1:57 AM AKDT on 2 August 2013), marking the first time in nearly 12 weeks (since 10 May 2013) that the sun has gone below the local horizon. However, the sun remained below the horizon for slightly less than 75 minutes before rising at 2:11 AM on Friday. On each day until mid-November, the length of night will increase at Barrow. On the afternoon of 18 November 2013, the sun will set and remain below the horizon for a stretch of two months until late January 2014.
High-quality maps of August temperature and precipitation normals across US available -- The PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University has prepared high-resolution maps depicting the normal maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation totals for May across the 48 coterminous United States for the current 1981-2010 climate normals interval. These maps, with a 800-meter resolution, were produced using the PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) climate mapping system.
August weather calendar for a city near you -- The Midwestern Regional Climate Center maintains an interactive website that permits the public to produce a ready to print weather calendar for any given month of the year, such as April, at any of approximately 270 weather stations around the nation. (These stations are NOAA's ThreadEx stations.) The entries for each day of the month includes: Normal maximum temperature, normal minimum temperature, normal daily heating and cooling degree days, normal daily precipitation, record maximum temperature, record minimum temperature, and record daily precipitation; the current normals for 1981-2010.
New version of NOAA's "Climate Data Online" released -- NOAA's National Climatic Data Center recently released a newly designed version of its "Climate Data Online (CDO)," an web-based interface that allows the public to access new climate data sets in addition to traditional data sets. All the datasets can be accessed through the CDO interactive mapping tool. In addition, archived Doppler radar data products can be accessed. [NOAA National Climatic Data Center News]
Very distant views of Earth -- One week ago NASA released to images taken of Earth by two NASA spacecraft that from nearly opposite ends of our solar system. One of the images was obtained from the Cassini spacecraft as it passed near Saturn, or at a distance of approximately 1.45 billion kilometers (898 million miles) from Earth. The other image was made by the MESSENGER spacecraft that is in orbit around Mercury and is approximately 98 million kilometers (61 million miles) from Earth. Because of the distances between the spacecraft and Earth, these images show our planet as only points of light that is reflected from the Sun. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Special "CATS eye" on International Space Station looks at aerosols -- A special instrument called a CATS-eye has been attached to the International Space Station in order to track airborne particles in the Earth's atmosphere and to serve as an early version of an instrument for a future satellite that will be launched in 2021. CATs, which stands for the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System, that is on the space station contains a lidar (light detection and ranging) or laser unit that fires directly into the atmosphere to detect the aerosols. [NASA Global Climate Change]
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]

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Reconstruction of temperature changes over the last two millennia made on the continental scale -- An international team of 78 researchers including those from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center recently published their reconstruction of the surface air temperature variations on all the continents beginning 2000 years ago. They produced standardized 30-year mean temperatures averaged across all seven continental-scale regions extending back over the last 2000 years that show some distinct periods in the temperature record that included the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, but with little globally uniform patterns. [NOAA National Climatic Data Center News] The results of this research were published as a paper entitled "Continental-Scale Temperature Variability during the Last Two Millennia." At the end of June 2013, this paper ranked number one in online attention in Nature Geoscience. [NOAA National Climatic Data Center News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Rapid acceleration of Greenland inland ice moves "like butter" -- Researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder and their colleagues created ice-sheet-wide velocity maps for Greenland using a NASA program called Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments. From these velocity maps, the researchers saw an increased in the flow of the inland segment of the Sermeq Avannarleq Glacier in interior Greenland, with flow rates 150 percent faster than a decade earlier. They claim that surface meltwater draining through cracks in an ice sheet can warm the sheet from the inside, softening the ice and letting it flow faster, like a warm stick of butter. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Warming climate may cut snow water storage of a Oregon watershed in half -- Scientists at the Oregon State University foresee a decrease in the amount of water stored in peak snowpack in the McKenzie River watershed of the Oregon Cascade Range by approximately 56 percent based upon a projected 3.6 Fahrenheit degree temperature increase. The dramatic reduction in snow water storage in the maritime snowpacks of western Oregon would be due to the change from snow to rain in the relatively low mountainous regions associated with only a modest temperature increase. The reduction in snow water storage would have major impactions on ecosystems and human activity across the region. [Oregon State University News]
Pacific equatorial cold water region studied -- Scientists at Oregon State University have obtained six years of observations on ocean water mixing from small instruments deployed on NOAA deep-sea equatorial moorings that permitted them to explain the existence of a large cold water region in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. They suspect that more mixing could be related to development of La Niña events, while less mixing would be associated with El Niño events. [Oregon State University News]
Decoding the long-term climate fluctuations in the Atlantic Ocean -- A team of German and Russian scientists has been investigating the role of heat exchange between atmosphere and ocean in an attempt to explain the long-term climate variability in the Atlantic Ocean. They analyzed meteorological observations and sea surface temperatures across the basin that extend over the last 130 years, finding the ocean significantly affects long term climate fluctuations, while the atmosphere is mainly responsible for the shorter-term, year-to-year changes. Their research could aid in the predictability of long-term climate fluctuations. [GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Climate forecasts could warn of crop failures -- An international team of researchers that includes a scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center claims that computer-based climate forecasts could predict wheat and rice crop failures up to three months in advance for approximately 20 percent of the global cropland. The researchers developed and tested a new crop forecast model that incorporates temperature and precipitation forecasts along with satellite observations from 1983 through 2006. The forecasts for wheat and rice were more promising than those for corn and soybeans. [NASA Global Climate Change ]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Satellites used to measure plant health focus on the cellular level -- NASA scientists have been using data collected by Earth-observing satellites that detect the fluorescence emanating from plants to assess the plant's health. The fluorescence is light invisible to the human eye that has been emitted by plants during photosynthesis. The fluorescence data collected by the Global Ozone Monitoring Instrument 2 (GOME-2) instrument on the European Metop-A meteorological satellite are converted into global maps of plant health at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. [NASA Global Climate Change]
Rising air temperatures cause tropical ecosystems to boost carbon dioxide levels -- Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center and their colleagues from other research centers around the world have found tropical ecosystems capable of generating significantly higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide than non-tropical ecosystems. They discovered that a temperature increase of one Celsius degree in tropical surface air temperatures lead to an average annual growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent to one-third of the annual global emissions from combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation combined. The team used a state-of-the-art, high-performance computing and data access facility called NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) at Ames to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relationship between carbon dioxide levels and increased temperatures. Apparently, carbon uptake in tropical ecosystems is reduced at higher temperatures. [NASA Global Climate Change]
Fire-caused tree deaths could increase across the West due to hotter and drier climate conditions -- In research conducted by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the National Park Service and the US Forest Service, researchers warn that changes in climate due to higher temperature would amplify the effects of both drought and wildfires on the forests across the West. Drought would result in more stress on the trees and these trees would be less likely to survive wildfires. The study was based upon conifer forests across seven Western states that experienced recent prescribed fires between 1984 and 2005. A listing was made of the tree species composition in 17 national parks and monuments across the region. [USGS Newsroom]
In separate but related research, scientists from the University of Illinois and their colleagues from other research universities have found that the boreal forests in the Yukon Flats region of interior Alaska are becoming more flammable, with an dramatic increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires over the last several decades. The researchers are attempting to ascertain if changing climate appears to be a factor. They have also found that the more frequent and more intense wildfires in the boreal forests are converting these conifers into more fire resistant deciduous forests. [National Science Foundation News]
Getting dirt on a melting glacier -- Researchers at the University of Alberta conducted research on the soils that are found on the glacial retreat areas of the Robson Glacier in British Columbia's Mount Robson Provincial Park. They found that the melting glaciers exposed soil that showed a variety of developing ecosystems and soil microbial communities. [Agricultural Institute of Canada]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

29 July 1898...The temperature at Prineville, OR soared to 119 degrees to establish a state record, which was tied on the 10^th of August of that same year at Pendleton. (The Weather Channel)
29 July 1930...Mississippi's record high temperature of 115 degrees was set at Holly Springs. (Intellicast)
30 July 1949...The state record temperature for Connecticut was established when the town of Greenville registered an afternoon high of 102 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
30 July 1965...The temperature at Portland, OR reached 107 degrees to equal their all-time record high. (The Weather Channel)
31 July 1861...Numerous world rainfall records were set at Cherrapunji, India as of this last day of July. These records include: 366.1 inches for a single 31-day month (during July 1861); 502.63 inches for two months (June-July 1861); 644.44 inches for three months (May-July 1861); 737.72 inches for four months (April-July 1861) and 1041.78 inches for 12 months (Aug. 1860-July 1861). (WMO, NWS)
31 July 1991...Roswell, NM closed out the month with a total of 6.68 inches of rain to set a new record for the month. (Intellicast)
31 July 1986...The temperature at Little Rock, AR soared to 112 degrees to establish an all-time record high for that location. Morrilton, AR hit 115 degrees, and daily highs for the month at that location averaged 102 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
1 August 1977...Excessive rains at Muduocaidang, China were responsible for establishing two world records, to include 33.07 inches in 6 hours and 55.12 inches in 10 hours. (WMO, NWS)
1 August 1985...A nearly stationary thunderstorm deluged Cheyenne, WY with rain and hail. Six inches of rain fell in six hours producing the most damaging flash flood of record for the state; a 24-hour precipitation record for the Cowboy State was also established with 6.06 inches. Two to five feet of hail covered the ground following the storm, which claimed twelve lives and caused 65 million dollars property damage. (Storm Data)
1 August 1993...San Francisco, CA hit 98 degrees, the hottest ever recorded for the city in August. (Intellicast)
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)

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