Second Hottest July on Record as El Nino Fade Continues
Average temperatures for the globe, as well as the northern and southern hemispheres, went up in July despite the continued cooling of the El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event and the apparent transition to a La Nina Pacific Ocean cooling event.
“If you look at how much sea surface temperatures are falling, no one would have predicted this,” Christy said.
July 2010 was the second hottest July globally and in the Northern Hemisphere; third hottest in the Southern Hemisphere; and fourth hottest in the tropics.
Compared to seasonal norms, July 2010 was also the 17th warmest of all of the months since the satellite temperature dataset began in December 1978. (more…)
New Methodology Improves Winter Climate Forecasting
It’s hot out right now, but new research from North Carolina State University will help us know what to expect when the weather turns cold. Researchers have developed a new methodology that improves the accuracy of winter precipitation and temperature forecasts. The tool should be valuable for government and utility officials, since it provides key information for use in predicting energy consumption and water availability.
“Predicting winter precipitation is extremely useful, because winter is the most important season in terms of re-charging water supplies in the United States, ensuring water will be available in the summer,” says Dr. Sankar Arumugam, author of the study and an assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State. The study was co-authored by Naresh Devineni, a Ph.D. student at NC State.
Researchers were able to reduce uncertainty in winter climate predictions by developing a methodology that incorporates multiple climate forecast models and also accounts for the activity of El Nino conditions in the Pacific. (more…)
Rare 114-Year Record, Kept by Generations, Logs Changing Climate
Paul Huth checks the thermometer at the Mohonk Preserve, located at the same spot for 114 years, and read every day without a break. (Photo Linda Keyes/Courtesy Mohonk Preserve)
Every day since Jan. 1, 1896, an observer has hiked to a spot at The Mohonk Preserve, a resort and nature area some 90 miles north of New York City, to record daily temperature and other conditions there. It is the rarest of the rare: a weather station that has never missed a day of temperature recording; never been moved; never seen its surroundings change; and never been tended by anyone but a short, continuous line of family and friends, using the same methods, for 114 years.
On top of that, observers have for decades recorded related phenomena such as first appearances of spring peepers, migratory birds and blooming plants. At a time when scientists are wrestling to ensure that temperature readings from thousands of divergent weather stations can be accurately compared with one another to form a large-scale picture, Mohonk offers a powerful confirmation of warming climate, as well as a compelling multigenerational yarn. The story is told in an article by researchers from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Mohonk in the current issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
Mohonk was founded in 1869 by the Smileys, a close-knit Quaker family that still runs the 7,200-acre property on a high ridge in the Shawangunk Mountains. When the fledgling United States Weather Bureau (later the National Weather Service) founded an official station there, it supplied thermometers, log sheets and other materials; Albert K. Smiley, one of the twin brothers who founded the place, volunteered to man it. (more…)
Dying Star May Shed Light on Earth’s Weather
From an international command center at Mt. Cuba Observatory in Wilmington, Del., University of Delaware astronomer Judi Provencal is coordinating the Whole Earth Telescope's latest observing run, which focuses on a dying star in the constellation Ophiuchus. (Photo by Kevin Quinlan/University of Delaware)
The Whole Earth Telescope (WET), a worldwide network of observatories coordinated by the University of Delaware, is synchronizing its lenses to provide round-the-clock coverage of a cooling star. As the star dims in the twilight of its life, scientists hope it will shed light on the workings of our own planet and other mysteries of the galaxy.
The dying star, a white dwarf identified as WDJ1524-0030, located in the constellation Ophiuchus in the southern sky, is losing its brightness as it cools, its nuclear fuel spent. It will be monitored continuously from May 15 to June 11 by WET, a global partnership of telescopes which was formed in 1986. (more…)
Wireless System to Steer Drivers Away from Dangerous Weather
This composite image simulates the type of visual alert that a driver might receive from the road warning system being tested by NCAR. (UCAR, photomontage by Michael Chapman and Carlye Calvin)
Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are testing an innovative technological system in the Detroit area this month that ultimately will help protect drivers from being surprised by black ice, fog, and other hazardous weather conditions.
The prototype system is designed to gather detailed information about weather and road conditions from moving vehicles. Within about a decade, it should enable motor vehicles equipped with wireless technology to transmit automated updates about local conditions to a central database, which will then relay alerts to other drivers in the area. (more…)
Ice Discovery Could Lead to New Techniques to Modify Weather Patterns
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered a five-sided ice chain structure that could be used to modify future weather patterns.
Researchers, in collaboration with University College London and the Fritz-Haber Institut in Berlin, created the first moments of water condensing on matter – a process vital for the formation of clouds in the atmosphere – by analysing how the two interact on a flat copper surface. Ice has rarely been viewed at the nanoscale before and the team discovered a one-dimensional chain structure built from pentagon-shaped rings, rather than the more commonly seen hexagonal structures of ice formations like those seen in snowflakes. (more…)
Next Gerneration NASA Ocean Tracker Will Enhance Long-Term Weather Predictions
Paul Siqueira is the lead researcher building an interferometric receiver.
For weather forecasters trying to stay ahead of the next tropical cyclone, deadly heat wave or drought, knowing the ocean water temperature, circulation patterns and current shifts can be critical factors to success. Now, scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, are designing and building the next generation of orbiting tracker for NASA that will supply such data with unparalleled precision.
The 18-inch receiver being built at UMass Amherst, is part of the larger instrument expected to greatly enhance forecasting. It works by reflecting 35-GHz microwaves off the Earth’s surface from an orbit 600 miles above to track factors that long-range meteorologists use to predict climate phenomena. Knowing water temperature and current flow can help to give early warning of an El Niño effect, for example, which periodically triggers drought, floods, and other unusual weather events, costing billions of dollars. (more…)
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