Thanksgiving Week: 24-28 November 2008

• Eye on the tropics --- With two weeks remaining in the official hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic (including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea) and the eastern North Pacific, no tropical cyclone activity was detected this past week. However, tropical cyclone activity was reported in the southern Indian Ocean, which is somewhat unusual as the Southern Hemisphere is currently experiencing spring. Tropical Storm Anika formed early last week off Java and dissipated several days later along the northwest coast of Australia. Information on this tropical storm can be found on the NASA Hurricane Webpage. Another system identified as Tropical Storm 3S formed south of south of the Cocos Islands during the week and weakened the following day. Additional information on this system appears on the NASA Hurricane Webpage.

• A review of October's weather -- Scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center recently reported that October 2007 was the ninth warmest October on record for the 48 coterminous United States. The Northeast was unseasonably warm, with Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island having their warmest October in the 113-year period of record that began in 1895 when a sufficiently dense nationwide climate observation network was formed. However, statewide temperatures across Washington, Oregon and California were below the 113-year average for October. The Southwest, including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, had below average precipitation totals for October, while the upper Midwest and the northern Plains, as well as Kentucky and Vermont reported much above average October precipitation. Unfortunately, 35 percent of the contiguous U.S. remained in moderate-to-exceptional drought at the end of the month. The 2007 fire season was the second worst on record according to the National Interagency Fire Center, exceeded only by last year's record fire season [NOAA News]
  The National Climatic Data Center has posted a listing of some of the notable extremes in temperature, precipitation and other weather elements across the nation for the recently completed month of October 2007. Some additions to this list may be made in subsequent weeks.
• A final official US winter forecast is issued -- Forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center released their final US winter outlook for the winter season (the three months of December 2007 through February 2008). These forecasters continue to foresee a higher than average probability that much of the nation should experience above average winter temperatures, except for sections of the West and northern New England. Southern Texas appeared to have the highest probability of an unseasonably warm winter. The West, which included the Pacific Coast, the northern tier of states from the interior Northwest to the Dakotas, along with northern New England, could have equal chances for above or below average temperatures. The forecasters also anticipate high probabilities of drier than average conditions across the southern tier of states, extending from southern California to the Southeast, regions that are currently experiencing severe to exceptional drought conditions. On the other hand, the Pacific Northwest and sections of the Midwest should have better than even changes of a wetter than average winter. The forecasters are basing their outlook on what they see as a continuation of the current La Niña event in the planetary scale atmospheric and oceanic circulation regimes into early 2008. [NOAA News]
• Kenyan flooding monitored -- Images obtained from the Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite shows the magnitude of the flooding that occurred on Kenya's Nzoia River earlier in November. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Impact of mountains on clouds and precipitation patterns seen from space -- A MODIS image made from data collected from the NASA’s Terra satellite earlier this month shows a pattern of snow over Russia's Ural Mountains with a lack of snow downwind of these mountains. The image also shows some thin high level clouds that were affected by flow over the mountain barrier. [NASA Earth Observatory]

• Ocean observing satellite mission receives an award -- NASA and the US Department of the Interior recently presented the annual William T. Pecora Awards to NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) mission team and Samuel N. Goward of the University of Maryland in recognition of their outstanding contributions toward understanding the Earth by means of remote sensing. The QuikSCAT satellite has provided early detection of ocean storms and advanced the scientific exploration of global ocean wind patterns. [NASA]
• NASA supercomputer is fast -- An announcement was made last week that NASA's new Pleiades supercomputer at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA has been ranked as the third fastest on the on the Top500 list of the world's most powerful computers. In addition to running projects involving astronomy and space vehicle design, this supercomputer will run coupled atmosphere-ocean models to assess decadal climate prediction skill for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [NASA ARC]

• Lightning strikes used to predict flash floods -- A researcher at Israel's Tel Aviv University and colleagues from other European countries are attempting to use lightning data to predict the occurrence of flash flood events through a system called the "Flash Project." This Flash system could be used to provide advance warning to the public. [American Friends of Tel Aviv University]

• Link between lightning and terrestrial gamma ray flashes investigated --A small NSF-NASA satellite mission called the 'Firefly' CubeSat Mission will be launched in 2010 to study the link between lightning and sudden bursts of energy channeled upward to space called Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes (TGFs). The Firefly mission is a collaboration of scientists and students at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, along with Siena College, Universities Space Research Association, Hawk Institute for Space Science and University of Maryland Eastern Shore. [NASA] [NSF News]

• Climate forecasts could provide better water management -- The U.S. Climate Change Science Program recently released a scientific assessment report that indicates expanding the use of seasonal to interannual climate forecasts could assist decision makers in improving their management of water resources especially in areas of the nation prone to drought or semi-arid conditions. [NOAA News]
• Official US winter forecast is issued -- Forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center released their official US winter outlook for the upcoming winter season (the three months of December 2008 through February 2009). These forecasters foresee a higher than average probability that the nation's midsection, extending from the southern Plains to the western Great Lakes should experience a better than equal chance of above average winter temperatures. They also felt that the rest of the coterminous US would have approximately equal chances of below or above average winter temperatures. The forecasters also anticipate high probabilities of drier than average conditions across the southern tier of states, stretching from southern Arizona eastward to Florida and the coast of the Carolinas. On the other hand, the southern Plains, along with the Ozarks of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas should have better than even changes of a wetter than average winter. The forecasters are basing their outlook on what they consider planetary scale atmospheric and oceanic circulation regimes that do not exhibit El Niño or La Niña events. [NOAA News]
• A global review of October's warm weather -- Preliminary analysis of worldwide combined ocean and land temperatures by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center indicates that the recently completed month of October 2008 had the second highest combined October temperature since a sufficiently dense and reliable network began in 1880. They also found that the globally averaged land surface temperature for October 2008 was the highest on record for October, while that month's global ocean surface temperature was the sixth highest. [NOAA News]
• Buffer zones could help protect West Coast salmon from pesticides -- NOAA Fisheries Service recently issued a biological opinion to the US Environmental Protection Agency that found diazonin, malathion, and chlorpyrifos, three chemicals used in pesticides, as being agents that are likely to jeopardize more than two dozen populations of salmon on the West Coast listed as either endangered or threatened. This opinion calls for buffer zones next to salmon streams where the chemicals are used. [NOAA News]
• National system of marine protected areas launched -- The U.S. Departments of Interior and Commerce jointly released the final version of "Framework for the National System of Marine Protected Areas of the United States," which represents the culmination of a cooperative multi-agency, multi-year effort to protect the nation’s natural and cultural marine treasures through a National System of Marine Protected Areas. [NOAA News]
• Reducing turbulent flow in pipes -- Scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the Dutch Technical University in Delft have found that the turbulent fluid flow in pipes disappears with time, contrary to the commonly held idea that it remains unstable. [Max Planck Society]
• Renewable energy from water currents -- A University of Michigan engineer has built a machine that he claims works like a fish to convert vibrations in fluid flow in rivers into renewable power. [University of Michigan News]
• Salinity of Chesapeake Bay could be altered by sea level rise -- Researchers from Penn State University and the University of Maryland warn that projected changes in global sea level may affect the salinity of various parts of Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest estuary. [EurekAlert!]
• Urban trees could help storm water infiltrate -- Researchers from Virginia Tech, Cornell, and University of California at Davis have found that urban forests could help play a major role in mitigating storm water runoff since the trees permit the water to infiltrate into the ground where it recharges the groundwater. [American Society of Agronomy]
• Missing markers could indicate future Asian water supply problems -- Ohio State glaciologists who analyzed the radiochemistry of ice cores that they extracted from a Himalayan ice field have found a lack of expected radioactive signals from atomic bomb tests a half-century ago, which would indicate ice has not accumulated on the surface of the glacier since 1944. This lack of accumulating ice during the last 64 years could have an impact upon the water resources for people living near the Himalayans. [Ohio State University News]
• 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, drought, floods, marine weather, tsunamis, rip currents, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and coral bleaching. [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]
• Global Water News Watch -- Other water news sources can be obtained through the SAHRA Project at the University of Arizona [SAHRA Project]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Desertification

Desertification is one of the world's most pressing environmental issues, threatening the existence of more than a billion people who depend on the land for survival. In 1992, the United Nation's Conference on Environment and Development defined desertification as "land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climate variations and human activities." Through desertification, arable land is transformed into desert-like land, greatly reducing or eliminating the land's capacity to produce food. Desertification's impact on people dependent on subsistence farming and herding is food insecurity. Often, their only option to avoid famine is to migrate to urban areas.

According to U.N. estimates, desertification affects about 130 million hectares (320 million acres) of land worldwide, equivalent to the combined areas of France, Italy, and Spain. Portions of some 110 nations are impacted, including parts of the North American Great Plains, the Pampas of South America, the steppes of Asia, the Australia's "outback," and the edges of the Mediterranean. But by far the most widespread and severe impact is in Africa, where two-thirds of the continent's land area is desert or dry land. Almost three-quarters of Africa's dry-land agricultural area is degraded to some extent. Desertification is a very serious problem in Sub-Saharan Africa with its considerable year-to-year variability in seasonal rainfall and frequent long-term droughts (described on pages 83-84 of your DataStreme WES Textbook).

The systems approach is valuable in understanding desertification in that the process involves interactions of climate, Earth's land surface, the water cycle, and human activity. Desertification of dry lands accelerates during prolonged drought. Climate change can alter the frequency, duration, and intensity of drought and thereby contribute to soil desiccation. Although climate change may play an important role in desertification, a key factor is human mismanagement of the soil resource. Poverty and subsistence agriculture drive people to over-cultivate the land, quickly exhausting the soil's fertility. Overgrazing by livestock and deforestation exacerbate an already bad situation by removing the protective vegetative cover and exposing the topsoil to erosion by wind and running water. Winds can transport fine topsoil thousands of kilometers and sandstorms strip the leaves from plants and bury crops under dunes.

Land mismanagement also impacts the local climate and water budget, speeding up desertification. Without a vegetative cover, soil surface temperatures rise, accelerating evaporation of water, depletion of soil moisture, and build up of salts in the soil. Less soil moisture means that more of the available heat is used for raising the air temperature through conduction and convection (i.e., sensible heating). In this way heat stress combines with moisture stress to cut crop yields.

Concept of the Week: Questions

1. Through desertification, crop productivity [(declines) (increases)].
2. Human mismanagement of the soil resource [(is) (is not)] a key factor in desertification.

• 24 November 1981...Typhoon Irma, the worst typhoon in a decade hit the Philippines leaving 236 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.
• 24 November 1982...Hurricane Iwa lashed the Hawaiian Islands of Niihau, Kauai, and Oahu with high winds and surf. Winds gusting to 120 mph caused extensive shoreline damage. Winds at Honolulu gusted to 81 mph. Damage totaled 150 million dollars on Kauai, and fifty million dollars on Oahu. The peak storm surge on the south shore was six to eight feet. It marked the first time in 25 years that Hawaii had been affected by a hurricane. (The Weather Channel)
• 26 November 1888...A late season hurricane brushed the East Coast with heavy rain and gale force winds. The hurricane passed inside Nantucket and over Cape Cod, then crossed Nova Scotia. (David Ludlum)
• 26-28 November 1898...The "Portland" storm raged across New England producing gale force winds along the coast and heavy snow inland. A foot of snow blanketed Boston, MA, and 27 inches fell at New London, CT. Winds at Boston gusted to 72 mph, and wind gusts to 98 mph were estimated at Block Island, RI. A passenger ship, the S.S. Portland, sank off Cape Cod with the loss of all 191 persons aboard, and Boston Harbor was filled with wrecked ships. The storm wrecked 56 vessels resulting in a total of 456 casualties. (26^th- 28^th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 27-28 November 1905...Heavy snow and wind blasted the western Great Lakes with as much as seven inches of snow in northwestern Wisconsin and sustained winds of 42 mph recorded at Duluth, MN for 29 straight hours and 65 mph winds for 13 continuous hours. Severe drifting resulted. Eighteen ships were destroyed or disabled on Lake Superior. The ship Mataafa was grounded and broke in two in Duluth harbor. Nine of the fifteen crew of the Mataafa froze to death despite running aground within 100 yards of the shore. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 27-28 November 1912...Snowfall is a rare event for Florida. The record earliest snowfall for Florida, and the only November snowfall fell during the night across part of the interior counties in the far northwest (Madison to Gadsden) bordering Georgia. Up to 0.5 inches of snow was reported at Mt. Pleasant. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 27 November 1930...A terrific sandstorm in Morocco supplied the dust for the "mud rain" on the following day that fell from northern France to southern England. In Belgium a number of people were asphyxiated near Liege due to poor air quality. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 28 November 1921...New England was in the midst of a four day icestorm, their worst of record. Ice was more than three inches thick in many places following the storm, and property damage was in the millions of dollars. Northern New England received heavy snow with more than two feet reported in some areas. Overnight freezing rains continued through the day at Worcester, MA while the wind increased to a gale. Streets become impassable even on foot, and whole towns were plunged into darkness without communication. The storm caused $20 million damage to power lines, telephone lines and trees. (David Ludlum)
• 28 November 1960...A severe storm produced waves 20 to 40 feet high on Lake Superior. Duluth, MN was buried under a foot of snow, and clocked wind gusts to 73 mph. The northern shore of Lake Superior was flooded, and property along the shore was battered. Thousands of cords of pulpwood were washed into Lake Superior, and up to three feet of water flooded the main street of Grand Marais. Thunder accompanied the "nor'easter". (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 28-29 November 1995...Rivers in western Washington State experienced near-record flooding. In Snohomish County, 2000 students could not reach school because of flooded roads. In Duvall and Carnation, flooded roads stranded 15,000 people. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)

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