28 June-2 July 2010

• Eye on the Tropics -- Tropical cyclone activitiy was found across the eastern North Pacific and the western North Atlantic this past week:
• In the eastern North Pacific, Tropical Storm Celia, the third named tropical cyclone of 2010 in that basin, continued to travel generally westward as it became a hurricane at the start of the week. By late in the week, Hurricane Celia became a major category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. As of Sunday, Hurricane Celia had weakened sufficiently and was downgraded to a tropical storm. For more information and satellite imagery on Hurricane Celia, consult the NASA Hurricane Page . Another tropical cyclone formed last week off the southwestern coast of Mexico and intensified to become Hurricane Darby by late last week as it traveled to the west-northwest over the eastern North Pacific. Near the end of the week, Hurricane Darby had intensified to a category 3 hurricane before weakening over the weekend. As of Sunday, Darby had been downgraded to a tropical storm. Additional information and satellite imagery on Hurricane Darby are found on the NASA Hurricane Page .
• The first named tropical cyclone of the 2010 hurricane season in the North Atlantic formed over the waters of the western Caribbean late last week and was named Tropical Storm Alex. This tropical storm moved to the west-northwest and made landfall along the coast of Belize late Saturday and moved across the Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday. As it traveled across the Yucatan, it weakened to a tropical depression. Current forecasts indicate that Tropical Depression Alex could intensify after it moves out over the waters of the western Gulf of Mexico and affect northeastern Mexico and even south Texas later this upcoming week. [USA Today]
. A satellite image and additional information on Alex can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page .
• Satellite indicates a La Niña is replacing an El Niño-- Scientists at NASA's JPL recently confirmed that the sea surface data collected by the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite indicates the waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific have cooled during the last several months, suggesting that the warm phase El Niño event is being replaced by a cold phase La Niña event. This evidence confirms the findings of other scientists. [ NASA JPL ]
• Global temperature anomalies for May 2010 -- Researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies produced an image that shows the global distribution of the monthly temperature anomalies (arithmetic differences between observed and long-term 1951-1980 average temperatures) for the month of May 2010. While a large section of the Northern Hemisphere, especially over the Arctic and much of Eurasia and Africa, experienced May temperatures that were well above average, some locations in western North America, South America and Antarctica had below average monthly temperatures. [ NASA Earth Observatory ]
• Contract awarded for launching new carbon observatory satellite-- NASA officials recently awarded a contract to Orbital Sciences Corp. for the scheduled February 2010 launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite. This mission, which will replace the OCO-1 that failed to reach orbit in 2009, is dedicated to the monitoring of atmospheric carbon dioxide. [ NASA JPL ]
• A solar storm is captured by a spacecraft -- An animated series of images of the solar corona were produced from data collected from sensors on NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observations (STEREO) Ahead spacecraft. These images show a series of four coronal mass ejections from the Sun in late May 2010. [ NASA Earth Observatory ]
• Seeing southern lights from space -- A photograph of the aurora australis (southern lights) was taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station late last month. This aurora probably was caused by the mass ejections from the Sun. [ NASA Earth Observatory ]
• Hot cars can be dangerous for youngsters -- A researcher at San Francisco State University recently warned that his analysis of statistics from the media indicates an increasing number of infants and youngsters who die from hyperthermia because they were in vehicles where the interior temperatures have reached over 100 degrees. He said that as of mid June 2010, eighteen children have died this year to date. During the last several years, 34 fatalities per year are attributed to children by being left unattended in hot vehicles. [ USA Today ]
• Increased frequency in hot days seen for sprawling cities – A team of scientists from Georgia Institute of Technology reported on their research into the changes in the frequency of "very hot days" per year in urban areas across the nation over the last 50 years. "Very hot days" were based upon the heat stress index specified for each urban area by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center based on air temperature and humidity. They found that the annual number of very hot days increased by nearly 15 days in sprawling cities, while those cities with less sprawl increased by slightly less than 6 days. The researchers attributed the urban heat island effect as being responsible for much of the increase. [ USA Today ]
• Large climate change experiment to be conducted in Alaska -- Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and their colleagues at other national laboratories are planning a large experiment that is designed to test the effects of increased global temperatures on the arctic permafrost in Alaska. [ Oak Ridge National Laboratory ]
• Economic benefits of the NOAA PORTS® system shown in the Pacific Northwest-- A recent study prepared by NOAA and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution estimates that the installation of NOAA’s Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System, (PORTS®) along the lower Columbia River provided the region that included Portland, OR with $6.4 million per year in savings and direct income, primarily among maritime interests.  This system was installed along the Lower Columbia from its mouth up to Vancouver, WA and makes observations and predictions of water levels, currents, salinity, and meteorological parameters (e.g., winds, atmospheric pressure, air and water temperatures), which can be used as a decision support tool by mariners and the public.
• Authors named for next IPCC Report -- In anticipation of the scheduled release of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2014, the selection of 311 lead authors for various sections of the report was announced recently. Several American scientists were named among the lead authors, including two scientists from the US Geological Survey.   [USGS Newsroom ]
• 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]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, to include drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.