WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

12-16 February 2018

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Mardi Gras climatology -- Since Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the 40-day Lenten season observed by Christians, will begin on Wednesday (14 February), the day before (Tuesday, 13 February) is a day of celebration in many locations that is variously called Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday) or Shrove Tuesday. One of the more famous Mardi Gras celebrations occurs each year in New Orleans, LA. The National Weather Service Forecast Office at New Orleans/Baton Rouge has a 2018 Mardi Gras Climatology that provides the normal temperatures and precipitation along with extremes for New Orleans during the Mardi Gras week prior to Ash Wednesday. Some additional statistics are provided.
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2018 Campaign for February is underway -- The second in the series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2018 will continue through Thursday, 15 February. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. These constellations are Orion for latitudes equatorward of 30 degrees latitude in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres; Gemini for latitudes north of 30 degrees in the Northern Hemisphere and Canis Major for latitudes poleward of 30 degrees in the Southern Hemisphere. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The third series in the 2018 campaign is scheduled for 8-17 March 2018. [GLOBE at Night]
Two asteroids safely made close passage by Earth last week -- Astronomers at the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, AZ reported two asteroids safely passed by Earth during the last week at distances that were within one lunar distance (approximately 239,000 miles). On Tuesday (6 February) afternoon, asteroid 2018 CC that had a size estimated to be between 50 and 100 feet passed approximately 114,000 miles from Earth. The second asteroid, identified as 2018 CB, passed approximately 39,000 miles from Earth last Friday (9 February) afternoon. This asteroid was estimated to have a size ranging between 50 and 130 feet. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]
Interesting sidelights to the 2018 Winter Olympics -- The 2018 Winter Olympics are currently underway in PyeongChang and Gangneung, South Korea. The following is some interesting sidelights that complement the stories of team standings, medals won and athletic accomplishments:
- Weather Forecasts for the Olympics -- Current weather and weather forecasts for the Olympic games are available from the Korean Meteorological Administration.
- A view of the 2018 Winter Olympics sites from space -- NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has assembled several natural-color images showing views of the terrain around the Olympic Games that are being held in South Korea from data obtained from the Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite and from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). [NASA Earth Observatory]
- NASA instruments used to measure snow -- NASA has sent 11 of its instruments along with scientists and engineers to South Korea as part of a 11-nation project called International Collaborative Experiments for PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, or ICE-POP designed to make snow measurements on the various venues from the start of the Olympics (9 February) through the end of the Paralympics on 18 March 18. In addition to radar, NASA snow imagers use high speed cameras and advanced software to image every single snowflake falling in its viewing area, which is useful for counting the snowflakes and determining how much water is falling at that moment. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
Early upper-air weather data were obtained from kites and aircraft -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently posted a "Planet Postcard" that featured information about the upper-air observations program operated by the U.S. Weather Bureau (the predecessor to the National Weather Service) from the late 19th century. The weather data collected from tethered kites, aircraft observations and balloons are now achieved at NCEI. [NOAA NCEI News]
Monitoring degree-day units -- If you would like to monitor how this winter is affecting the amount of energy that you need for heating your home, please read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth. You will see how heating degree-day units are computed, as well as the corresponding cooling-degree day units. This supplemental also provides links to tabulations of the cumulative heating and cooling degree-day units that are available on a monthly basis for selected cities across the country.

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

A record global temperature spike seen for 2014 through 2016 -- Climate scientists at the University of Arizona and the University of Michigan recently analyzed the global temperature spike that occurred over the years of 2014 to 2016. They found that over these three years the global temperature jumped 0.43 Fahrenheit degrees or approximately 25 percent of the 1.6-Fahrenheit degree increase for the span running from 1900 to 2013. This recent three-year spike represents a record temperature rise for any comparable period since 1900. The researchers claimed that the natural variability in the Earth climate system was not sufficient to explain this remarkable jump, pointing to the release of heat generated by greenhouse emissions since the 1990s and stored in the Pacific Ocean by the 2015-16 El Niño event. This recent warming spike in coincided with extreme weather events worldwide, including heat waves, droughts, floods, extensive melting of polar ice and global coral bleaching. [University of Arizona News]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

New satellite sensors readied to address key Earth science questions -- Scientists and engineers at NASA and their colleagues in academia are preparing two sensors to be placed on orbiting satellites that were selected under NASA's fourth Earth Venture Instrument opportunity. The Earth Venture investigations are small, targeted science investigations that complement NASA's larger missions and are intended to provide data to help explain fundamental questions concerning the Earth's environment and planetary processes. For example, the Polar Radiant Energy in the Far Infrared Experiment (PREFIRE) will be placed on a pair of small CubeSat satellites to probe far-infrared radiant energy emitted by Earth for clues about Arctic warming, sea ice loss, and ice-sheet melting. Another sensor to be mounted to the exterior of the International Space Station is designed to determine the mineral composition of natural sources that produce dust aerosols around the world as part of the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation. [NASA Press Release]
Weather forecasts improved by freely shared satellite data -- The world meteorological satellite community has shared data freely for decades, based upon a philosophy that can be traced back to the pioneering efforts of Professor Verner Suomi who founded the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now, scientists from SSEC and worldwide are using data collected by the new NOAA-20 polar orbiting satellite data to improve forecasts and analyze global environmental processes. [University of Wisconsin-Madison News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Exploring the chances of additional U.S. drought with a "double-dip" La Niña -- An article written by a researcher at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory appears in the ENSO blog of ClimateWatch Magazine focusing upon the expansion of drought conditions across large sections of the U.S. during this current winter of 2017-2018, which is the second consecutive winter where La Niña conditions were prevalent; for more information on La Niña, see the Climate Forecasts section below. The occurrence of La Niña conditions twice during back-to-back years has been given the nickname "double-dip" La Niña. Recent research was cited pointing to the evidence that U.S. drought and the North Pacific atmospheric circulation anomalies strengthen in the second winter of a double-dip La Niña. Surprisingly, double-dip La Niña winters are relatively common and in eight instances since 1950 in which La Niña conditions in the first winter were followed by La Niña in the subsequent winter. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Updated El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion & last La Niña advisory outlook are released -- Late last week forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) released their monthly El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion in which they noted that atmospheric and ocean patterns through January 2018 indicated that La Niña conditions were evident, including a pattern of below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, which is consistent with a La Niña. However, most of the forecast models they use indicate the current La Niña conditions should deteriorate, causing a return to an ENSO-neutral status, with neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions. (ENSO stands for El Niño/Southern Oscillation.) Consequently, the forecasters have continued their La Niña advisory, while noting that an approximately 55 percent chance of the transition to ENSO-neutral conditions would occur during the March-May season (or the Northern Hemisphere meteorological spring). [NOAA Climate Prediction Center]
An ENSO blog was written by a contractor at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center describing the La Niña conditions that have been occurring since November. Attention was also paid to the water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific to some depth below the surface where the SST anomalies are typically obtained to ascertain the existence of El Niño, La Niña or ENSO-neutral conditions. Discussion was also made of the global temperature and precipitation patterns for the three months of November and January, as described in terms of differences or "anomalies" between these three-month averages and the long-term averages for the corresponding three months. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
(Editor's note: Documentation is provided on the maps page of the Climate.gov website of how the SST anomalies are determined for the ENSO monitoring region across the equatorial Pacific Ocean basin and used to determine if El Niño or La Niña conditions are occurring. EJH)

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION

Evidence for a massive biomass burning event nearly 13,000 years ago -- Researchers at recently reported that their analysis of charcoal records in 129 lake cores and at least four marine cores from around the world provides evidence for a massive biomass burning event across North and South America, Europe, and Asia at the Younger Dryas Boundary. This intense and multicontinental burn episode produced extensive atmospheric soot/dust loading that triggered an "impact winter." In addition to the interruption of photosynthesis, abrupt cooling and other climate changes, including Arctic sea ice expansion, rerouting of North American continental runoff and subsequent ocean circulation, would have occurred at this Younger Dryas Boundary, at approximately 12,800 years ago, which is well known for the collapse of the Clovis people and the extinction of megafauna such as mammoths and mastodons. [University of California Santa Barbara News]

CLIMATE AND HUMAN HEALTH

Patterns of ozone pollution across the nation and globe are revealed -- An international team of scientists from the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Germany, China and South Africa has compiled a global ozone pollution database that is part of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project. The researchers analyzed the present-day global and regional distributions of near-surface ozone for the 2010–2014 period and trends over the 2000–2014 for five ozone metrics relevant for short-term and long-term human exposure. Their results were published in the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report, which should provide other scientists and public health managers better insight on trends and patterns of human health exposure to near-surface ozone around the world.[NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Cape Town, South Africa is running out of usable water -- An article written for the ClimateWatch Magazine describes the severity of the drought that has been gripping South Africa for the last two years and its impact upon the nation's city of Cape Town. The cumulative effect of the below normal rainfall has resulted in a severe water shortage for this city, with even stricter water use regulations to be imposed beginning this April or May, perhaps only allowing each resident to use 7 gallons or less per day. The city has declared "Day Zero" to be 11 May 2018 when city residents may have to queue for water. [NOAA News]

Editor's note:

CNN

EJH

Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Concept of the Week: Developing a Quality Long-term Instrumental Climate Record

Systematic temperature and precipitation observations have been made at various locations across the nation for nearly two centuries. While only a handful of stations were available in the early 19th century, weather and climate observations currently are made from several hundred automatic weather sites operated by the National Weather Service and the Federal Aviation Administration as well as approximately 8000 stations in the Cooperative Observers Network administered by the National Weather Service. The weather data from these networks are also used to quantitatively assess changes of climate during the instrumental period of the past as well into the future. However, a variety of factors can affect the homogeneity of the record. For example, the locations of many of the stations have moved, from original downtown building roofs to current locations at airports. And the physical surroundings of the stations have changed, many becoming more urbanized.

In the late 1980s, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), now the National Centers for Environmental Information, in conjunction with the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory created the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) of 1218 stations across the 48 coterminous states having long-term records of both daily temperature and precipitation. This network was designed to provide an essential baseline data set for monitoring the nation's climate commencing in the late 19th century. These stations were created from a subset of the Cooperative Observers Network, chosen based upon long-term data quality that included length of record, percent of missing data, spatial distribution and number of station changes. Many of the selected USHCN stations were rural in an attempt to reduce the influence of urbanization. Using statistical analyses, data for these stations have been adjusted to account for movement of stations, or when a different thermometer type was installed. An urban warming correction was applied based upon population of the surrounding area.

More recently, NOAA began the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN), a project designed to collect and analyze climate data of the highest possible quality for the next 50 to 100 years. Each USCRN station would have electronic sensors that would make routine measurements of air temperature, precipitation, IR ground surface temperature, solar radiation and wind speed with a frequency of every five minutes and transmit these data to both NCDC and to National Weather Service offices via orbiting satellites on nearly a real-time basis. In addition to these measurements, additional sensors could be added to the USCRN stations that would measure soil temperature and soil moisture. Conscientious and detailed site selection was made for all stations so that they would not only be spatially representative, but that they would be in locations where the surrounding physical conditions would have a high likelihood of remaining the same over the next 50 to 100 years. Many of the sites were placed on federal or state owned lands, helping minimize the contamination of the climate record by urbanization or other changes in local ground cover.

These long-term, comparative, spatially representative values are vital to detect and verify the subtle changes in climatic conditions before they become overwhelmingly obvious.

Historical Events:

12 February 1784...Ice flows were spotted in the Gulf of Mexico after passing from the Mississippi River in February 1784. Ice actually blocked the river at New Orleans, LA. This was only one of two times that this occurred, the other during the Great Arctic Outbreak of 1899. The eruption of Laki in Iceland from 8 June 1783 through 7 February 1784 is the likely cause for the severe winter of 1783 to 1784. (National Weather Service files)
12 February 1899...Texas and the eastern Great Plains experienced their coldest morning of modern record. The temperature at Camp Clarke, NE plunged to 47 degrees below zero to establish a record for the Cornhusker State; this record has been tied in December 1989. (David Ludlum)
13 February 1784...Ice floes blocked the Mississippi River at New Orleans, then passed into the Gulf of Mexico. The only other time this occurred was during the "Great Arctic Outbreak" of 1899. (David Ludlum)
13 February 1899...This day was the coldest morning of record along the Gulf Coast. The mercury dipped to 2 degrees below zero at Tallahassee, the lowest reading of record for the state of Florida. The record low temperature for the state of Louisiana was set at Minden, when the thermometer fell to 16 degrees below zero. A trace of snow fell at Fort Myers, FL. This was the farthest south snow has ever been observed in the U.S. until 1977 when snow fell in Miami. The lowest temperature ever recorded at Dayton, OH occurred when it dropped to 28 degrees below zero. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
13 February 1905...Morning lows of 29 degrees below zero at Pond, AR, 40 degrees below at Lebanon, KS, and 40 below at Warsaw, MO established all-time records for those three states. (The Weather Channel)
13 February 2006...Central Park in New York City recorded its all-time heaviest snowstorm with 27 inches. Blizzard conditions struck New England as well, with 30 inches at Fairfield, CT and 18 inches at Boston. (National Weather Service file)
15 February 1936...The temperature at Parshall, ND plunged to 60 degrees below zero to establish a state record low temperature. On the 6^th of July that same year, the temperature at Steele, ND hit 121 degrees, also a state record high temperature. (David Ludlum)
16 February 1903...The temperature at Pokegama Dam, MN plunged to 59 degrees below zero to establish a state record. (David Ludlum) This record has since been broken with a 60 degree below reading in 1996. (NCDC)
16 February 1929...Britain's greatest snowfall of 70.9 inches fell in just 15 hours at Dartmoor, Great Britain. (The Weather Doctor)
16 February 1943...Record cold prevailed in the northeastern U.S. The morning low of 32 degrees below zero at Falls Village, CT established a state record, yet the afternoon high that day was 20 degrees above zero. In January 1961, this Connecticut record low was tied. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
16 February 1966...Heavy rain fell in Whenuapai, New Zealand, with 4.2 inches of rain falling in one hour, a new record for that time period in New Zealand. (The Weather Doctor)
16 February 1989...A surge of arctic air produced all-time record high barometric pressure readings of 31.08 inches at Duluth, MN, 30.97 inches at Chicago, IL and 30.94 inches at South Bend, IN. Readings of 31.00 inches at Milwaukee, WI and 30.98 inches at Rockford, IL tied their all-time records. (The National Weather Summary)
16 February 1996...A coastal storm produced heavy snow along the East Coast to push seasonal snowfall totals to new records at several locations. The following cities set new all-time seasonal snowfall records: Lynchburg, VA (8.1 inches new, 51.3 inches seasonal total); Washington/Dulles, VA (7.5, 53.4) ; Washington/National, DC (6.8, 40.8); Baltimore, MD (9.8, 54.9); Philadelphia, PA (7.5, 55.9); Hartford/Bradley, CT (10.3, 90.2) and Providence, RI (7.0, 78.0). (Intellicast)
17 February 1748...The temperature at Charleston, SC fell to 10 degrees, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the Colonial South. (The Weather Doctor)
17 February 1926...A deadly avalanche, Utah's worst, demolished 14 miner's cottages and a three-story boarding house in Binham Canyon. Thirty-six are killed and 13 injured. (The Weather Doctor)
17 February 1936...The temperature at McIntosh, SD plunged to 58 degrees below zero to establish a state record low temperature. (David Ludlum)
17 February 1974...Lakelse Lake, British Columbia received 46.5 inches of snow over 24 hours, Canada's greatest 24-hour snowfall on record that stood for nearly one quarter of a century until 57 inches fell in 24 hours at Tahtsa Lake, British Columbia on 11 February 1999. (The Weather Doctor)
17-18 February 2003...The President's Day snowstorm set a new Boston, MA record for the greatest snowstorm total snowfall: a total of 27.5 inches. (The Weather Doctor)
18 February 1899...While much of the central and eastern U.S. was recovering from the most severe cold wave of modern history, the temperature at San Francisco, CA soared to 80 degrees to establish a record for month of February. (David Ludlum)
18 February 1959...Some of the higher elevations of California were in the midst of a five-day storm that produced 189 inches of snow, a single storm record for North America. (13^th-19^th) (David Ludlum)
18 February 1966...The temperature at Winnipeg, Manitoba dropped to 49 degrees below zero, the city's lowest recorded temperature. (The Weather Doctor)
18 February 1979...The record low temperature for the state of New York was set at Old Forge when the temperature plummeted to 52 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
18 February 1996...Cuba's coldest morning on record occurred when the temperature at Bainoa, Cuba dropped to 33 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)

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