WEEKLY WEATHER & CLIMATE NEWS

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS

1-5 September 2008

Eye on the tropics --- The weather across the tropical North Atlantic basin was active during the last week.
- The seventh named tropical cyclone (low-pressure system of tropical storm or hurricane strength) for the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season formed early last week over the Caribbean waters south of Hispaniola and was named Gustav. As this system traveled to the northwest, it quickly intensified to a hurricane before making landfall in southwestern Haiti. Interacting with a mountainous landmass caused the hurricane to weaken, reverting to tropical storm status as it turned toward the west and southwest, passing over Jamaica. By the beginning of the weekend, Gustav intensified again as it turned toward the west-northwest across western Cuba, reaching Category 4 status (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) as it entered the Gulf of Mexico. By late Sunday afternoon, Hurricane Gustav weakened slightly, but remained a major hurricane as traveled toward the Mississippi Delta region of coastal Louisiana. Mass evacuation of the central Gulf Coast has commenced on Sunday. [CNN] An image obtained late last week from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the clouds surrounding Hurricane Gustav when it was near Jamaica. [NASA Earth Observatory] Additional images along with a detailed discussion of the evolution of Hurricane Gustav appear on the NASA Hurricane Page.
  Another tropical cyclone, Tropical Storm Hanna, formed in the tropical Atlantic to the northeast of the Leeward Islands late last week. This system traveled to the west-northwest and by late Sunday afternoon it was approaching the northern Bahamas. Additional information along with satellite images on Tropical Hanna is available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
  Residents of the Southeastern and Middle Atlantic States continued to experience the torrential rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay for much of last week. Images made from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite made in late July and late August show the flooding that occurred across sections of northeastern Florida because of Tropical Storm Fay as it crossed the Florida Peninsula. [NASA Earth Observatory] Additional images and discussion of Tropical Fay and its remnants appear on the NASA Hurricane Page.
- In the eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Julio moved northward across Mexico's Baja California Peninsula early last week before dissipating along the coast of the Gulf of California. Images and additional discussion of Tropical Storm Julio can be found in the NASA Hurricane Page.
Recent Gulf hurricanes provide glimpse of future hazards to offshore drilling -- Interests along the Gulf Coast can get some information as to what can happen to offshore oil drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico from the survey by a Rice University engineering professor of the damage made by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to many of the drilling platforms. [Rice University]
A silver anniversary for a cloud and climate research project -- NASA scientists and their colleagues recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), which was originally designed as the first project of the World Climate Research Program to study the role that clouds play in the planetary climate. [NASA]
Monsoon rains flood India -- Comparison of images made over northern India from data collected by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite over a two-week period in August shows the flooding that redirected the flow of one of the tributaries to the Ganges caused by torrential summer monsoon rains across sections of northern India. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Shrinking of Aral Sea documented from space -- A recent image obtained from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the decrease in the size of Aral Sea in the Former Soviet Union during the last eight years as documented by the NASA satellites. Much of the decrease in the Aral Sea, which was world's fourth-largest inland sea, has been because of river diversions made to make arid sections of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan fertile cropland. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Antarctic research helps Martian climate change research -- Researchers at Boston University have been applying knowledge gained from Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys in their study of the craters on the surface of Mars in an effort to arrive at an understanding of the changes in Martian climate. [EurekAlert!]
Explaining Greenland's ice sheet -- Using computer models, scientists at the United Kingdom's Universities of Bristol and Leeds conclude that a decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide was a greater contributor to the development of the Greenland ice sheet in the last three million years than the tectonic uplift of North America's Rocky Mountains. [EurekAlert!]
Barotrauma found as wind turbine hazard to bats -- Researchers at the University of Calgary have found that many of the bats that were killed near operating wind turbines are the result of barotrauma, a sudden drop in air pressure caused by the turbine blades rather than from direct contact with the blades. [EurekAlert!]
Smarter hurricane evacuations could save lives -- A graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a software program that could aid emergency officials in making timely decisions concerning evacuation of residents within their jurisdiction ahead of an approaching hurricane. [EurekAlert!]
Cold intolerance in corn studied -- Scientists at the University of Illinois claim they have found an enzyme that could be the key to overcoming corn's intolerance to low temperatures, which would increase the range of corn to colder agricultural regions. [EurekAlert!]
Energy official sees challenges ahead in "Confronting Climate Change" -- The US Department of Energy's Undersecretary for Science recently warned that one of the greatest challenges that humanity has ever faced could occur during this century as society needs to respond to global climate change at the same time energy demands are increasing. His remarks are contained on a podcast entitled "Confronting Climate Change." [EurekAlert!]
Approaching an all-time record minimum Arctic ice cover -- Recent observations made by the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite indicate that the extent of the current polar ice cover over the Arctic Ocean this summer had shrunk to a level that would rival the record minimum Arctic ice cover from last summer (September 2007). [ESA]
"Three Little Pigs" project tests stronger roofs -- The Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes at the University of Western Ontario has been conducting controlled tests this past week where full-scale houses have been subjected to pressures that simulate the effects of strong winds to 200 mph in order to determine how the load on a house would change when the roof fails. The destructive effects of mold and water will also studied. [University of Western Ontario]
LIDAR sees sky in 3-D -- A consortium that includes Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Swiss National Science Foundation and MeteoSwiss, the nation's weather service, recently inaugurated a LIDAR measurement system that provides a three-dimensional view of the overhead sky, including a continuous flow of data on atmospheric temperature and humidity up to a 10- km altitude. [Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne]
Super-volcano site is cooler than expected -- Geologists from Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming who have been making temperature measurements of the molten rock below the "Yellowstone hotspot" have found the temperatures in this region have been lower than expected. This region is responsible for the famous geysers within the Park and it was the site for an ancient super volcano that erupted approximately 600,000 years ago, spreading ash an area covering approximately half of what is now the United States. [NSF 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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.