WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS

9-13 November 2009

• Applications for a prestigious scholarship invited -- NOAA is accepting applications from qualified college undergraduate students interested in pursuing degrees in ocean and atmospheric sciences and education to the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. As many as 100 undergraduates could each receive up to $29,050 for their academic studies related to NOAA science, research, technology, policy, management, and education activities. Applications will be accepted through 30 January 2009. [NOAA News]

• Eye on the tropics -- During the last week several tropical cyclones were found across the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans:
  • In the North Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, a tropical depression became Tropical Storm Ida at mid week over the far southwestern Caribbean Sea of the Nicaragua coast. This storm intensified into a minimal category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale just before making landfall along the coast, making it only the third hurricane of 2009 in that basin. While over Nicaragua and Honduras near the end of the week, Hurricane Ida weakened first to a tropical storm and then a tropical depression. After reemerging over the Caribbean, Ida intensified to become a hurricane again, reaching category 2 status as it moved through the Yucatan Channel, brushing Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Hurricane Ida was moving into the southern Gulf of Mexico on Sunday. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite information on Hurricane Ida.
  • In the western North Pacific, a tropical depression developed east of the Marianas over the weekend and intensified to Tropical Storm 25 as it moved westward.
    A tropical depression, identified as Tropical Depression 24, formed early in the week east of Luzon in the Philippines and moved northward. This depression was identified as Tropical Depression 97W on the NASA Hurricane Page.
    Early in the week, Tropical Storm Mirinae moved over the South China Sea and intensified into a category 1 typhoon before making landfall along the central coast of Viet Nam. Satellite images and additional information concerning Typhoon Mirinae can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Winter Awareness -- Minnesota and Wisconsin will observe Winter Weather Awareness Week during the upcoming week (9-13 November). In addition, Oklahoma and Texas will observe Winter Awareness Day on Tuesday, 10 November, while Iowa will have their Winter Awareness Day on Thursday, 12 November.
• Wet and cold October across Midwest -- The Midwest Climate Center recently reported that at least 192 climate stations across the nine-state Midwest reported record-setting precipitation during October 2009. In addition, five of the states had statewide average monthly temperatures that were among the ten lowest since 1895. [Midwestern Regional Climate Center]
• Atlanta area floods were extremely rare -- Hydrologists with the US Geological Survey report that the flooding that hit the Atlanta (GA) metropolitan area in September was an extremely rare event, with a probability of occurrence of less than 0.2 percent, which could be considered as a 500-year flood. [USGS Newsroom]
• Mapping global climate impacts -- Scientists from the United Kingdom's Met Office Hadley Centre and their colleagues plotted a new global map that highlights some of the impacts that may occur if the global average temperature were to rise by 4 Celsius degrees above the pre-industrial climate average. [UK Met Office]
• Tracking atmospheric water vapor -- A climate researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and his colleagues have a map showing the movement of water vapor through the atmosphere, obtained by measuring the ratio of the "heavy water" isotope to the normal isotope using data from the European Space Agency's Environmental Satellite (ENVISAT) to follow the "age" of water as it travels through the atmosphere. [Scripps Explorations]
• Yosemite threatened by warming -- Scientists from the University of Washington and US Geological Survey's Yosemite Field Station warn that wildfires could become more frequent and more severe in California's Yosemite National Park because of increased global temperatures due to climate change. [BBC News]
• Pole-to-pole measurement of greenhouse gases commences -- Last week, scientists from NOAA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and several universities began the second phase of HIPPO (HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations of Greenhouse Gases) Mission that will provide a detailed view of the global distribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They will take a pole to pole flight climbing to 47.000 feet and descending to 1000 feet altitude on HIAPER (the High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform) a modified Gulfstream aircraft containing instruments. [NOAA News]
• Long ice cores retrieved from tropical Andes -- Researchers from the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University recently returned with two ice cores that they drilled from an ice field at 17,598 feet above sea level in the Peruvian Andes. These two cores, which range from 620 to 643 feet in length, are the longest ever drilled from ice fields in the tropics and should be able to provide an annual record of climate conditions at the site. [Ohio State University]
• Desert plant life threatened by nitrogen loss driven by climate change -- Researchers at Cornell University have found that increases in temperature and shifting precipitation patterns caused by climate change may cause nitrogen losses in arid ecosystems that result in reduced desert plant life. [Cornell University News]
• Air pressure changes found to trigger landslides -- A geologist with the US Geological Survey has found that the daily variations in air pressure across the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado produce a sufficient "air tide" along the mountain slopes that cause movement of the rocks and soil on the 2.5- mile long and 1000-foot wide Slumgullion landslide. [Discovery News] (Editor's Note: Special thanks are extended to Bruce Smith, an AMS Atmospheric Education Resource Agent from Appleton, WI who found this item. EJH)
• Air pollution can impact health of southern California communities -- Researchers at the University of Southern California have found that a significant portion of the preventable childhood asthma appears to have occurred along the heavy traffic corridors in the southern California cities of Long Beach and Riverside, indicating that the impact of air pollution on the disease has been underestimated in the past. [EurekAlert!]
• Land-use changes affect US climate -- Researchers from Purdue University, University of Maryland, and University of Colorado have found that most of the land use changes across the 48 coterminous states have caused reduced vegetative cover and increased air temperature. However, they noted that where land use conversion was to agriculture, a net cooling effect occurred with a reduction in surface temperature, due to increased evapotranspiration. The researchers also recommended incorporation of improved land use data into climate models to better estimate future climate. [Purdue Newsweek]
• Innovative plan to save rainforests would reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- Environmental researchers from the University of Maryland, the World Resources Institute and Save America's Forests are hailing the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, an innovative proposal by the Ecuadorian government to protect an untouched, oil rich region of Amazon rainforest as a precedent-setting and potentially economically viable approach. They also claim that this would also reduce greenhouse emissions. [University of Maryland]
• Recently launched environmental satellite becomes a "star" -- Last week, the European Space Agency successfully launched a new environmental satellite called SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) that will collect microwave radiation from the earth that should provide data on soil moisture and ocean salinity across the planet. A large antenna array was deployed for the Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) instrument, forming what appears as a large three-pointed "star in the sky" to earthbound observers. [ESA] [Discovery Channel] [EurekAlert!]
• New satellite sensor to make space weather observations -- A new instrument designed to remotely sense the Earth's the ionosphere and thermosphere from space, the Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI), was recently tested from a launch vehicle. The SSULI, developed by the Naval Research Laboratory, will be used on the future US Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F18 (flight 18) satellite. [EurekAlert!]
• Shrinking snows of Kilimanjaro could disappear within two decades -- A noted paleoclimatologist from Ohio State University and his colleagues warn that the data they collected from the ice fields on top of Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro indicate that the ice is waning at an increasing rate and that it could be lost within the next two decades . [EurekAlert!]
• Air pollution affects nutrient levels of pristine alpine lakes -- In research conducted on alpine and subalpine lakes in Colorado, Norway and Sweden, a researcher from the University of Colorado and her colleagues report that airborne nitrogen compounds from fossil fuel combustion and widespread application of agricultural fertilizers have increased the amount of nutrients deposited in these pristine lakes, affecting the aquatic phytoplankton. [EurekAlert!]
• Investigation how climate change would affect organisms -- A paleoecologist at Lehigh University and colleagues urge that a wide range of approaches need to be applied when predicting the potential impact that future climate change on organisms, citing examples of various limitations associated with current prediction models. [EurekAlert!]
• Common plants can combat indoor air pollution through "phytoremediation" -- A research team from the University of Georgia has identified five common ornamental plants as having "phytoremediation" or the ability to eliminate a variety of indoor air pollutants including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), improving the indoor air quality. [EurekAlert!]
• Projected changes in climate could affect agriculture in East Africa -- A new study by various groups supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) indicates that potential changes in climate across Africa by 2050 could result in highly variable impacts on agriculture across East Africa, resulting in both winners and losers. However, the researchers claim that adequate investment could permit the region to achieve food security for all groups. [EurekAlert!]
• 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.

Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2009, The American Meteorological Society.