WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

26-30 August 2013

DataStreme Earth Climate Systems will return for Fall 2013 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 2 September 2013. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

A change in seasons -- Saturday, 31 August 2013, marks the end of Northern Hemisphere's meteorological summer, the three-month span of June, July and August that meteorologists frequently use for record keeping processes. Meteorological autumn (September, October and November) for the Northern Hemisphere starts the following day, 1 September 2013, Meteorologists frequently use these three-month meteorological seasons for record keeping processes. Additional information will be presented in the next several weeks concerning meteorological seasons and the astronomical seasons, such as the familiar autumn that begins on the autumnal equinox in three weeks on Sunday, 22 September 2013.
Satellite shows Rim Fire expanding into Yosemite National Park --A day-night band satellite image obtained last Friday by NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP (National Polar-0rbiting Partnership) satellite shows the expansion of the Rim Fire from California's Stanislaus National Forest into the Yosemite National Park. As of this past weekend, the fire has burned more than 162 square miles of brush, oak and pine trees in steep and marginally accessible terrain. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
Satellite sees mix of sea ice and phytoplankton in the Northwest Passage --A visible image recently generated from data collected by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP (National Polar-0rbiting Partnership) satellite shows a mix of colors that included the white and ice blue areas associated with remnants of sea ice and the blue-green areas from the phytoplankton in northern Canada's Northwest Passage. The Northwest Passage represents a sea route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and the Arctic Ocean, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
GOES-12 satellite retired after a decade of service -- Early last week, NOAA decommissioned its Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-12) spacecraft after 3,788 days (more than 12 years) in orbit, operating well longer than its original design lifespan. This satellite, which was also known as "GOES-East" due to its position in geosynchronous orbit over equatorial South America, provided surveillance of such notable events as the historic 2005 hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin and a Christmas blizzard in the central United States in 2009. A YouTube video compresses 10 years of "weather history" into a three-minute animation. [NOAA News] A 2-minute video is also available that shows a sequence of winter storms that moved across the nation during the first 16 days of February 2010. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

China experiences an extended record heat wave -- A map of surface temperature anomalies (difference between observed and long-term average temperatures) across eastern China for 5-12 August 2013 produced from data collected by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite shows many locations that experienced temperatures in early August that were on the order of 10 Celsius degrees above average. Surface observations in July and the first half of August also confirmed a record-breaking heat wave, with Shanghai reaching a record high of 105.4 degrees Fahrenheit (40.8 degrees Celsius). [NASA Global Climate Change News]
July 2013 weather and climate for the globe reviewed -- Scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center recently reported on their analysis of preliminary weather data collected globally during the month of July 2013. The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2013 was 61.50 degrees Fahrenheit, which made this past month the sixth warmest July since 1880, when a sufficiently dense worldwide climate observing network was established. This combined land and ocean temperature was also 1.10 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century (1901-2000) average. When treated separately, the global ocean temperature was 0.97 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average, which was the fifth highest for July on record, while the global land surface temperature was the eighth highest on record, or 1.40 Fahrenheit degrees above the long-term average.
The researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center noted the areal extent of the Arctic sea ice for July 2013 was the fifth smallest July Arctic sea ice extent since satellite records began in 1979. On the other hand, the Antarctic sea ice during this past month represented the second largest July Antarctic sea ice extent on record. [NOAA/NCDC State of the Climate]
Visualizing historical tropical cyclone tracks -- NOAA's National Climatic Data Center has assembled the "best track" data for 11,967 tropical cyclones into a single database, called IBTrACS (International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship). This data set incorporates information obtained from many international sources for the period extending from 1842 to 2012. Images of tropical cyclone tracks in each of the world's ocean basins were generated from IBTrACS to give estimates of wind speeds along the tracks of these tropical cyclones, which provide estimates of cyclone intensity [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
Corresponding images show the frequency of track overlaps, which provide an indication of where tropical cyclones form. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

IceBridge campaign operations shift to Antarctica -- During the upcoming months, NASA's annual IceBridge campaign will shift its operations to McMurdo Station along the Antarctic coast. The IceBridge campaign is a six-year NASA mission and represents the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice designed to yield a three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. The new base of operations at McMurdo Station represents a shift from the mission's previous base at Punta Arenas, Chile and will expand its reach by measuring parts of Antarctica previously unavailable to the mission. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
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]

CLIMATE FORCING

Australia had big role in recent drop of sea level rise -- Using data collected from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado at Boulder claim that an unique and complex set of circumstances converged over Australia in 2010 and 2011 that caused Earth's smallest continent to be the biggest contributor to the observed drop in global sea level during that time, counteracting the longer term sea level rise. They showed that the drop was caused by the very strong La Niña that began in late 2010, which changed rainfall patterns over the planet over a short time span, moving huge amounts of water from the ocean to the Australian continent in the form of rain. [NASA Global Climate Change News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

Fall season climate outlook for the nation issued -- Forecasters at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) recently released their new national Three-Month (Seasonal) Climate Outlooks for September through November 2013, corresponding to the meteorological autumn season (in the Northern Hemisphere). Specific details of their outlooks include:
- Temperature and precipitation outlooks -- According to their temperature outlook, two areas of the nation should have a highly likely chance of experiencing above average fall temperatures. These areas are in the Southwestern States, consisting primarily of Arizona and New Mexico, and across the Northeast, from northern New England westward across the northern Great Lakes. The remainder of the nation should have equal chances of either above or below average temperatures for the next three months.
  Their precipitation outlook calls for better than average chances that above average fall precipitation would be found in the nation's midsection, especially across the mid-Mississippi Valley and the western Great Lakes and across the northern high Plains. All other sections of the nation were thought to have equal chances of above or below average precipitation.
  A summary of the prognostic discussion of the 3-month outlook for non-technical users is available from CPC. These forecasts were based in part that assuming that the current ENSO-neutral conditions (ENSO = El Niño/Southern Oscillation) should continue through the autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, where neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions should prevail. A description is also provided as how to read these 3-class, 3-month Outlook maps.
- Seasonal Drought Outlook -- The forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center also released their US Seasonal Drought Outlook that would run from late-August through November 2013. Their outlook would call for the persistence of major drought conditions across many areas of the western half of the nation, extending from Texas westward to California and northward from the Mexican border to Montana and Idaho. Some improvement in soil moisture conditions were anticipated across sections of the Mississippi Valley and the southern Rockies.
  Note: a Seasonal Drought Outlook Discussion is included describing the forecasters' confidence.

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Tracking nitrate pulse in Mississippi River basin to Gulf of Mexico -- Scientists associated with the US Geological Survey have been using nearly three dozen new optical sensors to accurately track the nitrate pulse moving down the small streams and larger tributaries of the Mississippi River basin to the Gulf of Mexico. This excessive nitrate pulse in the runoff in the river basin contributes to the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone, an area with low oxygen known commonly as the "dead zone." [USGS Newsroom]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Coastal areas damaged by Hurricane Sandy are being remapped by Federal agencies -- At the start of last week the Obama administration released the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force progress report, followed the next day by the announcement by NOAA, the US Geological Survey and the US Army Corps of Engineers of plans for remapping parts of the East Coast, where the landfall of Hurricane Sandy last October altered seafloors and shorelines, destroyed buildings, and disrupted millions of lives. These three federal agencies are using emergency supplemental funds provided by Congress to survey coastal waters and shorelines, acquiring data that will update East Coast land maps and nautical charts. [NOAA News] [USGS Newsroom]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

26 August 1883...Krakatoa Volcano exploded in the East Indies. The explosion was heard more than 2500 miles away, and every barograph around the world recorded the passage of the air wave, up to seven times. Giant waves, 125 feet high and traveling 300 mph, devastated everything in their path, hurling ashore coral blocks weighing up to 900 tons, and killing more than 36,000 persons. Volcanic ash sent into the stratosphere was carried around the globe in thirteen days producing blue and green suns in the tropics, and then vivid red sunsets in higher latitudes. The temperature of the earth was lowered one degree for the next two years, finally recovering to normal by 1888. (David Ludlum)
26 August 1935...San Francisco, CA had their heaviest 24-hour rainfall for August when 0.25 inches fell. (Intellicast)
26 August 1989...Anchorage, AK was soaked with a steady rain, and the 24-hour total of 4.12 inches smashed their previous 24-hour precipitation total of 2.10 inches. It also pushed their rainfall total for the month past their previous record for August. (The National Weather Summary)
27 August 1948...Buffalo, NY hit its all-time maximum temperature of 99 degrees. (Intellicast)
27 August 1970...Elko, NV was deluged with 3.66 inches of rain in just one hour, establishing a state record. (The Weather Channel)
27 August 1973...The largest documented Canadian hailstone fell at Cedoux, Saskatchewan. The stone weighed 0.55 pounds and measured 4.5 inches across. (The Weather Doctor)
27 August 1986...A mix of snow, ice pellets and rain fell on Sault Ste. Marie, MI during the evening, the first time snow was observed in August since records started in 1888. (Intellicast)
27 August 1995...Remains of Tropical Storm Jerry unloaded 12.32 inches of rain in 24 hours in Greer, SC, a record for 24 hours, for a rain event and for August. At Antreville, 17.00 inches fell in 24 hours, setting a 24-hour rainfall record for the Palmetto State. (Intellicast)
28 August 1911...Saint George, GA was deluged with 18.00 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record that was subsequently broken by the current record of 21.10 inches in July 1994. (The Weather Channel)
28-29 August 1962...Hackberry, LA was deluged with 22 inches of rain in 24 hours, establishing a state record. (The Weather Channel)
29 August 1876...A torrential downpour inundated St John's Newfoundland with 173.2 mm (6.8 inches) of rainfall, the greatest single daily accumulation ever recorded in the province. (The Weather Doctor)
29 August 1965...The observatory on top of Mount Washington NH reported a snowfall of 2.5 inches of snow, a national record for the month of August. (The Weather Doctor)
29 August 2005...As Hurricane Katrina traveled across the northern Gulf of Mexico toward the Louisiana Coast, a reconnaissance aircraft determined that Katrina's minimum central pressure was 902 millibars (or 26.64 inches of mercury), the fifth lowest pressure ever recorded in an Atlantic hurricane. Katrina was also the third most-intense land-falling hurricane in US history based on a minimum landfall pressure of 920 millibars (or 27.17 inches of mercury). (The Weather Doctor)
29 August 2007...With its high temperature pegged at 113degrees, Phoenix, AZ set a new record of 29 days with 110 degree or higher temperatures. (The Weather Doctor)
30 August 2000...The temperature rose to 111 degrees at the North Little Rock Airport, setting a new record for the highest temperature ever observed at that location. (The Weather Doctor)
31 August 1885...A record 71-day dry period began at Calgary, Alberta. (The Weather Doctor)
31 August 1889...Los Angeles, CA set two local rainfall records as 0.61 inches fell, the maximum 24-hour and monthly records for August. (Intellicast)
31 August 1915...The temperature at Bartlesville, OK dipped to 38 degrees to establish a state record for the month of August. (The Weather Channel)
31 August 1971...The low of 84 degrees and high of 108 degrees at Death Valley, CA were the lowest of the month. The average daily high was 115.7 degrees that August, and the average daily low was 93.4 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
31 August 1987...Frost was reported in South Dakota. Aberdeen, SD established a record for the month of August with a morning low of 32 degrees, and Britton, SD dipped to 31 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
1 September 1914...The town of Bloomingdale, MI was deluged with 9.78 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a state record for the Wolverine State. (31^st-1^st) (The Weather Channel) (NCDC)
1 September 1955...The temperature at Los Angeles, CA soared to an all-time high of 110 degrees during an eight-day string of 100-degree weather. (David Ludlum)

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