WEEKLY WEATHER & CLIMATE NEWS

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS

3-7 December 2018

Items of Interest:

update to early & late December -- fix constellations
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2018 Campaign for December commences -- The twelfth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2018 will commence this Thursday (29 November) and continue through Saturday, 8 December. 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 Perseus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus for 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 first series in the 2019 campaign is scheduled for 29 December-7 January 2019. [GLOBE at Night]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2018 Campaign for December is underway -- The twelfth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2018 will continue through Saturday, 8 December. 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 Perseus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus for 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 first series in the 2019 campaign is scheduled for 29 December-7 January 2019. [GLOBE at Night]

Weather Awareness -- During this week (26 November-2 December) Georgia and South Carolina will observe Winter Weather Awareness Week in their respective states. Residents of these states should become aware of the hazards associated with winter storms and other cold weather events by reviewing the material prepared by the local National Weather Service Office.
CHECK -- Annual growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide during 2016 continues at record pace -- According to the lead scientist at NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, the annual growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) during 2016 as measured at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii jumped by three parts per million (ppm). This increase in carbon dioxide during 2016 follows a slightly greater increase (3.05 ppm) in the greenhouse gas in 2015. When considered together, the 6-ppm increase of carbon dioxide during 2015 and 2016 represents the largest increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the 59 years of that gas measurements have been made by the observatory at Mauna Loa. [NOAA News] (Editor's Note: The concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ at Mauna Loa and other global locations can be tracked on a nearly real-time basis online at the "Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" website maintained by NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory. EJH)
UPDATE -- Second year of tornado research program commences in Southeastern US -- Earlier this month NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory launched the second year of its VORTEX-SE (or Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes EXperiment-Southeast), a research program designed to determine how environmental factors and terrain across the Southeastern States affect tornadoes in that region. VORTEX-SE will also look at how the public learns of the threats posed by tornadic thunderstorms and how they respond to protect their lives and property. As many as 40 physical and social science researchers from 20 research organizations will participate in VORTEX-SE, which will run through 8 May. [NOAA News]

List of world weather records that produce highest mortality established -- The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently announced that its official "WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes" has been expanded from temperature and weather records to tabulate and document "world records" for the highest mortality associated with tropical cyclones, lightning, tornadoes, and hailstorms. The highest mortality associated with a tropical cyclone is an estimated 300,000 people killed directly as result of the passage of a tropical cyclone through Bangladesh (at time of incident, East Pakistan) of 12-13 November, 1970. [WMO Press Release]
International report claims that 2017 set to be in top three hottest years, with record-breaking extreme weather -- The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently published a report entitled "The World Meteorological Organization's provisional Statement on the State of the Climate" that has been submitted to the twenty-third session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 23) currently being held in Bonn, Germany. This WMO report notes that while 2017 appears to be slightly cooler than the record setting 2016, this current year appears to be on a track that may make it one of the three warmest years on record. In addition to increases in the concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, sea level continues to rise and the sea ice extent in both the Arctic Ocean and around Antarctica has been decreasing.The report identifies several significant extreme weather and climate events in 2017 that include a very active North Atlantic hurricane season, major monsoon flooding across the Indian subcontinent and continuing severe drought in sections of east Africa. [World Meteorological Organization Press Release]
CHECK -- Field campaign targets snow science in support of nation's water supply -- The first aircraft flights have been completed in western Colorado as part of the NASA-led SnowEx research campaign that is designed to improve remote-sensing measurements of the amount of snow that is on the ground at any given time and how much liquid water equivalent contained in that snow. The amount of water in snow plays a huge role in water availability for drinking water, agriculture, and hydropower. Nearly 100 scientists from universities and governmental agencies in the US, Canada and Europe will be participating in SnowEx, a multi-year project. The researchers will use five aircraft with a total of 10 different sensors in addition to ground-based equipment as part of the SnowEx campaign. Data acquired from the SnowEx campaign will be archived at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO and will be available to anyone at no cost. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Feature]
Check https://nsidc.org/data/snowex
for NOAA hurricane forecasts --
A meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center wrote an article for the ClimateWatch Magazine that examines some of the background information that his fellow forecasters used to make their 2017 hurricane season outlook for the North Atlantic. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Check for Annual report of the NOAA Climate Program Office for 2017 released -- During the past week NOAA's Climate Program Office (CPO) released its 54-page 2016 annual report that provides an overview of its activities and accomplishments made by this office in climate and ocean observation, research, modeling, and decision support activities for society. [NOAA Climate Program Office News]

Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology

update to early & late December -- fix constellations
Nation's newest polar orbiting environmental satellite becomes NOAA-20 -- When the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-1 spacecraft successfully attained its final polar orbit of Earth on Saturday, 18 November 2017, it was renamed NOAA-20 in accordance with a nearly 40-year old tradition for naming NOAA's polar-orbiting satellites. [NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service]
The "first light" image (or the first image transmitted back) from the newly launched NOAA-20 satellite was a composite image obtained from its Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) sensor that shows the global distribution of precipitable water (total amount of water vapor in the lowest 5 km of the atmosphere) as associated with antenna temperatures. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
GOES-16 satellite is on the move -- After an extensive series of tests run following its launch slightly more than one year ago (19 November 2016), the NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-16 spacecraft began a move Thursday, 30 November 2017. The spacecraft is moving from its position in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth that is along the Equator at a longitude of 89.5 degrees West. GOES-16 should reach its new home over the equator at a longitude of 75.2 West on Monday, 11 December, where it will eventually replace NOAA's GOES-13 as the GOES-EAST Satellite. GOES-13 will continue to provide instrument data during an overlap period until 2 January 2018, at which time instruments will be turned off and moved to its storage location at 60 degrees west. [NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service]
First European meteorological satellite launched 40 years ago -- On 23 November 1977, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched Meteosat-1 into geosynchronous orbit around the Earth, Europe's first meteorological satellite. This satellite was the first geosynchronous meteorological satellite to have a water vapor channel, where an onboard sensor takes measurements of the infrared radiation emanating from the planet in selected wavelength bands that permit the tracking of the motion of water vapor along with ice crystals and liquid droplets in clouds. [EUMETSAT News]
Questions answered about the NOAA fleet of satellites -- NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) recently posted a set of questions frequently asked by the public about its fleet of satellites. Several of the questions included: "Can satellites see you?" and "Can you see a satellite?" Several satellite images are provided. [NOAA NESDIS News]
Winter Awareness -- Kentucky and North Carolina will observe their Winter Awareness Weeks during the upcoming week (3-9 December). Residents of these states should review the winter weather safety rules issued by their local National Weather Service Offices.
Celebrate World Soil Day -- This Tuesday, 5 December 2017, has been declared to be World Soil Day, an event that is annually held on the 5th of December "to celebrate the importance of soil as a critical component of the natural system and as a vital contributor to human wellbeing" as made in a resolution by the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS). This year's theme for World Soil Day is "Caring for the Planet starts from the Ground," since soil is a finite natural resource. [Food and Agricultural Organization of UN - World Soil Day]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2017 Campaign commences -- The twelfth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2017 will commence this Saturday (9 December) and continue through Monday, 18 December. 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 (Pegasus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus in the Southern Hemisphere) with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The first series in the 2018 campaign is next and is scheduled for 6-15 January 2018. [GLOBE at Night]
Role of weather in the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941 -- Although the weather at Pearl Harbor on the leeward side of Hawaii's Island of Oahu on the morning of Sunday, 7 December 1941, was relatively pleasant when the US Navy base was attacked by Japanese aircraft and submarines, the weather did play a role during the days preceding the attack. Six Japanese aircraft carriers left Japan's Kure Naval Base in late November 1941 and travelled essentially undetected across the western North Pacific under the cover of unsettled weather associated with several large storms moving across the Aleutians and the Bering Sea that had cold fronts trailing to the southwest across the North Pacific. One of the storms did scatter the ships over several hundred miles, but did regroup with minimal use of radio communication. The Japanese carrier fleet came to a staging point within 275 miles north of Hawaii, where they launched their attack aircraft early Sunday morning. When the two waves of more than 350 aircraft took off from the carriers in the predawn darkness, strong winds were helping produce rough seas. These aircraft flew through and above a thick deck of low clouds until reaching the leeward side of Oahu, where the skies cleared because of the light northeasterly trade winds descending the slopes of the mountain range. The pilots used the local radio stations
The weather also played a role in the planning, as the Japanese government sent codes to their overseas diplomats using bogus weather reports involving wind directions to announce which countries with which it was cutting diplomatic ties.

Weather and Climate News Items:

Eye on the tropics -- During the last week, tropical cyclone activity was limited to the Indian Ocean basin:

In the northern Indian Ocean basin, near the end of last week Tropical Cyclone Ockhi formed near Sri Lanka. Over this past weekend Ockhi intensified into a category 3 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale for a short time as it traveled toward the north-northwest across the southeastern Arabian Sea offshore of the southwestern coast of India. Torrential rain associated with Ockhi fell across western India. As of early Monday (local time), Cyclone Ockhi was traveling northward as it was approximately 780 miles to the south of Karachi Pakistan. Current forecasts indicate that Cyclone Ockhi would slowly curve toward the northeast and weaken before reaching the northwest coast of India. Consult the NASA Hurricane Page has satellite images and additional information on Tropical Cyclone Ockhi.
In the southern Indian Ocean Basin, Tropical Storm Dahlia formed late last week approximately 1000 miles to the north-northwest of Learmonth, Australia. Dahlia traveled to the southeast and then to the south toward the northwestern coast of Australia over this past weekend. Tropical Storm Dahlia began weakening as of early Monday (local time) as it was located approximately 460 miles to the north-northwest of Learmonth, Australia. Dissipation was anticipated by late Monday. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite images on Tropical Storm Dahlia.

Additional summaries of 2017 hurricane seasons in North Atlantic basins -- At the end of the official 2017 hurricane season in the North Atlantic, eastern North Pacific and central North Pacific basins last Thursday (30 November 2017), NOAA scientists issued their preliminary assessment of this hurricane season in the Atlantic basin. They reported that the Atlantic basin experienced an extremely active season, not only in terms of the number of named tropical cyclones (tropical storms and hurricanes), but also upon the magnitude of a parameter noted as the "Accumulated Cyclone Energy" index, which measures the combined intensity and duration of the storms during the season. The scientists also noted that investments in research and forecasting during recent years have paid dividends in more accurate predictions of tropical cyclone tracks in 2017. A four-and-a-half-minute video was made of the 2017 hurricane season using an animation of satellite images obtained from the NOAA GOES-East satellite. [NOAA News]
The forecast team at Colorado State University released their summary of the tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic basin during 2017 along with a verification of their long-range seasonal and two-week forecasts. [Tropical Meteorological Project]
Mount Agung volcano on Bali erupts -- After weeks of seismic activity, the Mount Agung volcano on the Indonesian island of Bali erupted at the start of last week, with volcanic ash and condensate being carried aloft. This volcanic ash posed a hazard to aircraft and resulted in the closing of the Bali airport. [The Sun] [World Meteorological Organization News]
Images produced by data collected by the Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite (OMPS) on the NASA/NOAA Suomi-NPP satellite early this week show sulfur dioxide emanating from the recent Mount Agung stratovolcano following the explosive eruption last weekend. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Sulfur dioxide carried upward into the stratosphere can react with water and form shiny sulfuric acid droplets that reflect solar radiation, thereby reducing surface heating and causing a lowering of the surface temperatures as occurred following Mount Agung's last major eruption in 1963. That eruption resulted in a reduction in global temperatures by as much as 0.2 Celsius degrees during the following year. [Vox Media]
Short-term tornado forecasting breakthrough could mean earlier forecasts -- Researchers at Canada's University of Western Ontario have used high-altitude turbulence radar measurements to detect tornado signatures. These radar measurements were obtained from ten radar units in a unique Ontario-Quebec Windprofiler Network of purpose-built radars that measure wind and turbulence through the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The researchers claim that radar signatures detecting turbulence above the parent cumulonimbus cloud may allow forecasters to predict tornado formation up to 20 minutes earlier than with current forecasting techniques. [University of Western Ontario News]
Canadian national seasonal outlook issued -- Forecasters with Environment Canada issued their outlooks for temperature and precipitation across Canada for December 2017 through February 2018, which represents meteorological winter. The temperature outlook indicates that the northern Canada running from the coast of the Yukon Territory eastward and northward to Nunavut's Ellesmere Island could experience above normal (1981-2010) temperatures for these three months. Above average winter temperatures are possible across southeastern Canada, running from the sections of Ontario along the Great Lakes to the Maritime Provinces. Elsewhere, average temperatures could be anticipated from British Columbia eastward across the Prairie Provinces and northern sections of Ontario and Quebec to Labrador.
The Canadian precipitation outlook for the 2017-18 winter season indicates that above average precipitation was to be anticipated across scattered areas of southern Canada. Only a few small areas in the southern Yukon Territory of western Canada could have below average precipitation. Near-average winter precipitation was expected across wide areas of the nation.
[Note for comparisons and continuity with the three-month seasonal outlooks of temperature and precipitation generated for the continental United States and Alaska by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, one would need to use Environment Canada's probabilistic forecasts for temperature and precipitation.]
Satellites reveal changes in the size of Africa's Lake Chad -- Images obtained by NASA's Landsat 1 satellite in 1973, the agency's Landsat 8 satellite in 2017, the CIA's Corona strategic reconnaissance satellite in 1963 and by an astronaut on the International Space Station in 2015 reveal changes in the areal size of Lake Chad, located in Africa's Sahel. The size of the lake is dependent upon the inflow of water from the highly variable rainfall totals associated with the rainy season (July through September) of the West African Monsoon. Lake Chad, a relatively shallow lake that provides fresh water for more than 30 million people, has undergone large changes in size, not only over the last half century, but over the last 10,000 years. [NASA Earth Observatory]
More boreal forest wildfires sparked by lightning strikes in northern Alaska and Canada -- Using data collected from MODIS sensors on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites, the Alaska Large Fire Database and the lightning detection network, a team of scientists has found that wildfires across the boreal forests in Alaska and northern Canada have been increasing in frequency and in areal size over the last several decades. More lightning discharges due to increasing unstable atmospheric conditions caused by a warming climate appears to be responsible for igniting many of the wildfires. In addition, earlier spring thaws have been leading to longer fire seasons. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Connections between extreme weather events and human health explored -- Researchers from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites–North Carolina, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Florida State University have recently published a paper that explores the interconnections between extreme weather and climate events and human health on both short-term and long-term scales. However, important gaps in knowledge about the health impacts of extreme events still exist. The paper also highlights ways that research into these connections can help build resilience. [NOAA NCEI News]
An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

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