WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS

25-29 August 2008

• Eye on the tropics ---
  • In the North Atlantic basin, Tropical Storm Fay moved to the west-northwest over the Caribbean Sea south of Cuba over last week. Fay made an initial landfall in Florida as it passed over the Florida Keys on Monday afternoon. Early Tuesday morning Fay made a second landfall along the southwest Florida coast to the south of Naples. Traveling to the north-northeast across the Florida Peninsula, Fay moved out over the western North Atlantic, but then made a third landfall along the northeast coast of Florida near Daytona Beach. The storm continued westward across northern Florida and after traveling over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, made a fourth landfall near Apalachicola. As of Sunday, Faye was traveling to the northwest across southern Alabama. An image generated from data collected from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows the clouds surrounding Tropical Storm Fay while it was off the east coast of Florida. [NASA Earth Observatory] Additional information and several images on Tropical Storm Fay can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
  • In the eastern North Pacific, Tropical Storm Julio, the tenth named tropical cyclone of the 2008 hurricane season in that basin, formed off the west coast of Mexico late Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, this storm was moving to the north-northwest toward the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California.
  • In the western North Pacific, Tropical Storm Nuri brushed the northern coast of Luzon in the Philippines last week. Typhoon Nuri, reached category 2 status on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it traveled across the South China Sea; note that a typhoon is the western North Pacific's equivalent to a hurricane. By late in the week, Typhoon Nuri made landfall near Hong Kong along the south coast of China. An image from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite shows the clouds associated with Typhoon Nuri as it crossed the South China Sea toward southeastern China. [NASA Earth Observatory] Additional images plus a discussion of Nuri are available at the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Dust affected the seasonal hurricane outlook -- Researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and George Mason University report that from their analysis of satellite data, they suspect hot, dry and dusty air carried westward across the tropical Atlantic Ocean from dust storms over Africa's Sahara Desert appears to have been a major reason why the 2007 North Atlantic hurricane season was quieter than expected. [NASA GSFC]
• Schools getting weather radios -- Several federal agencies have started distributing more than 182,000 Public Alert Radios (NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards) to nonpublic schools systems around the nation. [NOAA News]
• New marine weather web site unveiled -- NOAA, along with Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association, through the University of North Carolina/Wilmington, has unveiled a Southeast Marine Weather Internet portal that has been designed to offer marine weather forecasts as well as real-time coastal wind and water information along the coastal waters of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Alabama. [NOAA News]
• New storm tide stations in Gulf serve as sentinels -- NOAA recently dedicated the first of four new "NOAA Sentinel" water level observing stations in the coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico offshore of Mississippi and Louisiana that will provide meteorological and water level data. These "hurricane hardened" stations are designed to withstand the winds and waves that would accompany a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir Simpson Scale. [NOAA News]
• Fires seen from space -- Satellite sensors such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors onboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites often detect smoke plumes and, at times, even wildfire itself, thereby providing valuable information about large wildfires around the globe. During the last week, some of the MODIS images that detected fires in :
  • in northern Australia [NASA Earth Observatory]
  • in Libya [NASA Earth Observatory]
  • in Idaho [NASA Earth Observatory]
  • in Indonesia; a graphic was also generated from data collected from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite that shows the precipitation anomaly (difference between actual and average conditions). [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Clouds associated with a thunderstorm -- A photograph taken earlier in August in the British Isles shows globular clouds called mammatus clouds that hang under a portion of a thunderstorm (cumulonimbus) cloud; the best view of mammatus clouds occurs with a low sun angle. These globular cloud protuberances may indicate turbulent motions in the thunderstorm cloud. [BBC News]
• Major water ruling challenged in Nevada -- Groups opposed to the plan that would allow 6.1 billion gallons of water to be pumped from three rural Nevada valleys per year by the Southern Nevada Water Authority for use in Las Vegas have filed a challenge in court to block the pumping. [US Water News Online]
• Climate change could spark conflict -- A researcher at the University of Illinois warns that changes in climate that result in damage to global ecosystems could provide an impetus for conflict and wars as competition for natural resources increases. [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]
• Planetary-scale atmospheric circulation patterns studied -- A researcher at Imperial College London and collaborators who have been studying the atmospheric circulation regimes around the global report the existence of two distinct cells in the Northern Hemisphere and two in the Southern Hemisphere that are responsible for driving weather events, including storm systems. The researchers caution that water vapor must be considered in these large-scale circulation regimes. [EurekAlert!]
• Satellite images show breakup of Greenland's largest glaciers -- Researchers at the Byrd Polar Research Center at the Ohio State University who have been monitoring NASA satellite images of Greenland's glaciers on a daily basis report that the Northern Hemisphere's longest floating glacier continues to breakup during the last month. They predict that the glacier should disintegrate in the next year. [Ohio State University Research News]
• Ice core shows Arctic air pollution history -- Researchers from Nevada's Desert Research Institute report that their detailed chemical analysis of an ice core obtained from the Greenland ice sheet reveals that coal burning in North America and Europe during the last 200 years has spread toxic heavy metals across the Arctic, with pollution accumulation rates appearing to be higher 100 years ago than in recent decades. [NSF News]
• Human-caused wind changes could result in dry, warm springtime in Southwest -- Research conducted at the University of Arizona claims that changes in the prevailing winds from the west caused by planetary warming and an "ozone hole" attributed to humans could result in hotter and drier springs across the American Southwest. [EurekAlert!]
• Public schools in US are in an "air pollution danger zone" -- Researchers at the University of Cincinnati claim that one in three US public schools are located near major highways, which means that they are situated in what can be called an "air pollution danger zone" where school children become more susceptible to respiratory diseases. [University of Cincinnati Health News]
• Air quality in coastal cities degraded by ship smoke -- Measurements made by chemists at the University of California, San Diego indicate that dirty smoke produced by ships burning high-sulfur fuel at sea or in port can substantially degrade the air quality in port cities. [University of California, San Diego]
• Grazing animals worsen impact of climate upon Arctic -- Biologists at Penn State University caution that climate models used to study the impact of projected increased temperatures upon the Arctic ecosystem must include the role that grazing animals have upon worsening the impact. [Pennsylvania State University]
• Century-long drought have happened in eastern North America's past -- Researchers at Ohio State University, at the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Minnesota have reconstructed a climate record from stalagmites from a cave for the last 7000 years that shows eastern North America was susceptible to extensive drought episodes that persisted for at least one century. The researchers suggest that the seven drought episodes, with a periodicity of approximately 1500 years were the result of reduced solar radiation that cooled the North Atlantic Ocean, resulting in less precipitation. [Ohio State University Research News]
• Martian soil may be harsh for life -- Scientists at the University of Arizona studying the results from the Martian soil analysis conducted by NASA's Phoenix spacecraft state that the presence of perchlorate, a chemically reactive salt, in the soil would appear to make potential life less likely on the Red Planet. [US Water News Online]
• 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.

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2008, The American Meteorological Society.