Jan 9-13, 2023 Weather & Climate News

[Mid-Atlantic Weather Station (MAWS) Mailing List]

(Source:  AMS, 11/19/23)

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS 9-13 January 2023 Items of Interest:

   
• AMS Annual Meeting is being held this week -- The 103rd annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society is being held this week (8-12 January 2023) in a hybrid format, with the in-person section being in Denver, CO. Scientists, educators from grade school through university level, students and other professionals in the weather, water, and climate science community will be attending to listen to or participate in talks, poster sessions, panel discussions and town hall meetings.
             This year's theme for the annual meeting is "Data: Driving Science. Informing Decisions. Enriching Humanity." Meteorologists, hydrologists, oceanographers and climatologists collect and process data to create new knowledge and insights. Many NOAA scientists and staff who are affiliated with the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will be involved in the meeting. [NOAA NCEI News]
  One of the specialty conferences within the annual meeting will be the 32nd Conference on Education.         Members of the staff of the AMS Education Program, including this reporter, will be in attendance.
• Watching for high ocean tides along the coasts of the Pacific Islands early this week -- According to the NOAA National Ocean Service's High Tide Bulletin for Winter 2022, higher than average astronomical tides are to develop along the coasts of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands (Guam, American Samoa, Midway, Kwajalein and Wake Island) will run through Wednesday, 10 January after starting on 3 January. In addition to tides that are higher than normal high astronomical tides during this week, lower than normal low tides can be encountered each day.
  These above- and below-average tides are known as a perigean spring tides, caused by the occurrence of lunar perigee (when the Moon is closest to Earth) and a new or full moon. Lunar perigee will occur early Sunday morning (6 January at 09:20 Z), which is nearly a day and a half (1 day 10 hours) after passage of full moon (06:23 Z on 6 January). None of the other coasts bordering the nation on the Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean should experience higher than normal tides during this week. [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
• Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2023 Campaign for January commences -- The first in a series of twelve GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for the calendar year 2023 commences this Friday (13 January) and will continue through Monday, 23 January. 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 constellations with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. The constellations selected for this series are Orion and Canis Major in the Northern Hemisphere and Orion 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 second series in the 2023 GLOBE campaign is scheduled for 12-21 February. [GLOBE at Night]
   
• Start of the year according to the Julian calendar -- Saturday (14 January 2023) would be the first of January according to the Julian calendar. This calendar was used across much of Europe from the time of Julius Caesar until the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582. Ultimately, this older calendar was dropped from use except for some Eastern Orthodox religious observances. The Julian calendar inserts one day once every four years (such as three years ago on 29 February 2020), overestimating the time for the earth to orbit the sun by 11 minutes 14 seconds. Consequently, a difference in approximately 14 days has accrued since the time of Julius Caesar. (Courtesy, J. Lattis, Space Place, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• NOAA's GOES-18 satellite is now known as GOES-West -- This past Wednesday, NOAA announced that its Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-18 satellite just had been renamed GOES West as it had become fully operational following months of testing, GOES-West is now in its operational position in a geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of 22,236 miles above the Equator and at a longitude of 137.2 degrees West (which is nearly due south of Skagway, a city located on Alaska's southeast Panhandle). Launched in March 2022 as GOES-T, it was renamed GOES-18 when it reached orbit. Once the testing was completed, it was moved to a position where it replaced its predecessor GOES-17 that had been called GOES-West. This name is used because it is a position where the satellite can monitor weather and other environmental phenomena affecting the western contiguous U.S, Alaska, Hawaii and the adjoining waters of the North and South Pacific. In addition, GOES-West also watches the Sun and detects space weather hazards that could affect large sections of planet Earth. The other operational NOAA GOES satellite is GOES East, which is located over the Equator at a longitude of 78.5 degrees West and monitors weather systems over eastern North America and the adjoining sections of the western Atlantic Ocean. [NOAA NESDIS News]
   
• Helping students realize that warming oceans result in climate change -- A nearly two minute video (without the ads at the end) illustrates how warming ocean temperature is a major factor in climate change, particularly the increase in severity of extreme weather. The video is appropriate to middle and high school students (grades 6 through 12). In addition to the video, teaching tips and pedagogical information are available. [NOAA Climate.gov Teaching Climate]

Weather and Climate News Items:

• Eye on the tropics -- One tropical cyclone developed last week in the western South Pacific basin (located off eastern coast of Australia, running from a longitude of 160 degrees East eastward to the 120-degrees West meridian). A tropical low pressure system developed early last week over the Coral Sea to the northeast of Australia. This low strengthened and became more organized during the week, becoming a tropical storm early Saturday (local time) when maximum sustained near-surface winds reached 40 mph. At the time, this system, which was initially identified as Tropical Cyclone 7P, was located 120 miles to the north-northeast of Townsville on Australia's Queensland coast or nearly 850 miles to the west of Noumea, New Caledonia, the capital city of the South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia. Eventually Tropical Cyclone 7P was given the name Hale. Traveling to the southeast within a favorable environment, Tropical Storm Hale reached peak intensity early Sunday with sustained near-surface winds reaching 50 mph. However, Hale began curving to the east-southeast and encountering wind shear, which created a sufficiently hostile environment. Thus, Hale weakened and eventually became a subtropical system late Sunday approximately 260 miles south-southeast of Noumea. Eventually it became a remnant low.
• Experimental weather satellite is launched by U.S. Space Force -- This past Tuesday morning, U.S. Space Force launched an experimental weather satellite from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida that is designed to improve its on-orbit weather forecasting capabilities. The satellite, which was carried into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is part of a one-year demonstration that is designed to support the Space Force’s Electro-Optical/Infrared Weather Systems (EWS) program, demonstrating emerging space weather imaging technology. Future EWS weather satellites that will be in the Space Force constellation, will replace the last three of the legendary Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites that are expected to run out of fuel by 2026. [c4isrnet.com News]
• Review of Canada's top ten weather (and climate) stories in 2022 -- The Canadian Government's Environment and Climate Change Canada recently released its 27th annual edition of the Top 10 Weather Stories in Canada, which is a list of what the agency considered the top ten weather events across Canada during the calendar year of 2022. These weather stories were ranked according to several factors that included the impact upon the nation and its citizens, the areal extent of the affected area, the associated economic impacts, and the longevity that the event was a top news story. The top five of these stories featured former Hurricane Fiona that struck eastern Canada in September, a billion-dollar derecho that tore across Ontario and Quebec in May; record spring snow and rain drenched Manitoba; an infamous heat dome that resulted in summer 2022 being the third warmest on record; major wildfires in British Columbia and in Newfoundland. The Insurance Bureau of Canada will be tallying final figures from the significant 2022 weather events over the next several months. However, preliminary figures indicate 13 major weather events occurred, each with insured cost-losses of at least $30 million and with an aggregate loss approaching $3 billion. These estimated losses will be only a fraction of the actual cost to properties, businesses, and infrastructure. Interestingly, The weather across Canada in 2022 was much less dramatic compared to the weather during the previous year of 2021, which was the most expensive, disruptive, and destructive year for weather in Canadian history. [Environment and Climate Change Canada]
• Formation of Bering Land Bridge appears surprisingly late in last Ice Age -- Researchers from Princeton University have found that the Bering Land Bridge emerged far later during the last ice age than previously thought. This Land Bridge is the strip of land that once connected Asia to Alaska, and is often thought to be an avenue for the first humans to migrate from Asia to the Americas. Using nitrogen isotopes in marine sediments collected from the floor of the Arctic Ocean during a trans-Arctic expedition in 1994, the scientists created a history of the Arctic Ocean over the last 50,000 years. From this chronology, they found that the Bering Land Bridge was flooded until 35,700 years ago, or to within 10,000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum. Full emergence of the Land Bridge must have occurred shortly before humans migrated into the Americas. These findings indicate that a less direct relationship between climate and global ice volume may have existed than scientists previously had thought, casting into doubt some explanations for the chain of events that cause ice age cycles. Growth of growth of the ice sheets, along with the resulting drop in sea level appears to have occurred quickly and much later in the last glacial cycle than previous studies had suggested. [Princeton University 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]

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