WEEKLY WEATHER & CLIMATE NEWS

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS

7-11 September 2009

Eye on the tropics --- The weather across the tropical ocean basins in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific remained active during the last week.
- In the North Atlantic, Tropical Storm Erika formed over tropical waters well to the east of the Leeward Islands early last week and moved westward, crossing these islands and entering the Caribbean Sea, where it dissipated south of Puerto Rico at the end of the workweek. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information on Erika, together with several different types of satellite images.
- In the eastern North Pacific, Hurricane Jimena, which became a major category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it traveled over the waters off the Mexican coast, made landfall along western coast of the Baja California Peninsula at the midpoint of last week. After taking an erratic track over Baja where it weakened first to a tropical storm and then a tropical depression, Jimena exited out over the Gulf of California by the end of the week. Additional information and a variety of satellite images of former Hurricane Jimena can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
- In the western North Pacific, Tropical Storm Dujuan formed late last week east of the Philippine Island of Luzon and traveled to the northeast, reaching a position to the southeast of Japan's Okinawa by Sunday (local time). For additional information on Tropical Storm Dujuan, along with a satellite image, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
A catalog of satellite orbits around Earth -- The NASA Earth Observatory has prepared a well illustrated overview of the three classes of orbits that satellites are place in to observe environmental conditions in the Earth-atmosphere planetary system. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Explaining the increase in Antarctic sea ice -- Scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Goddard and the University of Washington have explained the observed increases in sea ice on the Southern Ocean around Antarctica with three theories — ozone depletion, changing ocean dynamics, and the flooding of sea ice. [NASA Earth Science News Team]
Monitoring the wildfires in southwestern California from space -- A satellite image obtained from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite shows smoke and clouds found across the Los Angeles (CA) metropolitan area last week due to the large and deadly Station Fire that was burning in the mountainous Angeles National Forest to the north of the city. [NASA Earth Observatory] An animation produced by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows the spread of atmospheric carbon monoxide across North America and the North Pacific from the Station Fire. [NASA JPL]
Floods in the Sahel -- Images obtained from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows some of the effects of the flooding that occurred across the western sections of the Sahel in western Africa because of recent torrential rain. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Summer's sea level anomaly along the US Atlantic Coast explained -- A new technical report entitled "Elevated East Coast Sea Level Anomaly: June-July 2009" produced by NOAA scientists explains that the observed higher than normal sea levels along the nation's Atlantic coast during this past summer has been caused by steady and persistent winds from the northeast along the weakening of the Florida Current Transport, an ocean current that feeds into the Gulf Stream. [NOAA News]
Desertification in Spain reflected by vegetation -- Scientists from Spain's Rey Juan Carlos University report that perennial vegetation cover in esparto or "needle grass" fields appear to be an efficient early warning system of the appearance of desertification within the Iberian Peninsula. [EurekAlert!]
Arctic warms to highest levels in more than two millennia -- Researchers at Northern Arizona University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have produced a long term reconstruction of the temperatures across the Arctic basin and have determined that the long-term cooling trend during the last 2000 years has ended and rapid warming has begun during recent decades, with Arctic temperatures reaching the highest levels in these recent two millennia. [UCAR/NCAR] Some of the data used for this study was obtained from sediment taken from Arctic lakes by an international team of scientists, including those from Northern Arizona University. [EurekAlert!]
Oceanic methane gas likely exits through seafloor vents--Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claim that methane trapped under the oceans may be escaping into the oceans and then the atmosphere through vents in the sea floor at rates faster than previously thought. [MIT Civil & Environmental Engineering Dept.]
Erosion caused by humans comparable to large natural agents -- Researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington claim that many areas of the world with high rates of erosion are being caused by changes in climate and human activity, with large-scale farming projects capable of eroding the Earth's surface at rates comparable to those of the world's largest rivers and glaciers. [EurekAlert!]
Satellites and submarines monitor sea ice thickness -- Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Washington have been assembling observations of the ice thickness of ice covering the Arctic Ocean from submarine and recent satellite observations to produce a record that extends back nearly 50 years. They note that sea ice thickness, which influences the Arctic basin's climate and ecosystems, had declined by over 50 percent from a peak back in 1980. [NASA Earth Science News Team]
Early warning signals can indicate critical change thresholds ahead -- A group of scientists from the Wageningen University in The Netherlands, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Scripps Institution of Oceanography warn that certain signals can become apparent that would provide warnings of impeding abrupt changes in the planetary climate and ocean circulation as many of these systems approach a critical state of transition or tipping point, when a sudden shift to new conditions would occur. [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 Plan et [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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