Global Warming Might Push Back Fall Foliage Transformations

According to a report by Princeton University researchers in Global Ecology and Biogeography, climate change might affect when fall foliage appears in different parts of North America.

In the study, the researchers explained that trees need low daily temperatures and short daylight hours to churn out their famous autumnal shades.

Senior author David Medvigy, an assistant professor of geosciences and associated faculty member at the Princeton Environmental Institute, and first author Su-Jong Jeong discovered that these two factors – daily temperature and daylight hours – not only help predict fall foliage timing, but also influence specific tree species in different ways. 

"We're really interested in understanding how these systems will change as we experience global warming or climate change," Medvigy said in a university statement. "What these results are suggesting is that different locations will change in different ways, and that these differences are actually going to be quite interesting."

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/global-warming-fall-leaves-20140922

Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Has Gone Dry

In a landmark moment that will go without celebration, the eastern basin of the South Aral Sea has completely dried for the first time in modern history.

According to NASA, the Central Asian lake has been shrinking since the 1960s, when the Soviet government began diverting water in the area for agriculture. However, the lake hasn’t dried to such an extent until this summer.

"This is the first time the eastern basin has completely dried in modern times," Philip Micklin, a geographer emeritus from Western Michigan University and an Aral Sea expert, told NASA. "And it is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since Medieval desiccation associated with diversion of Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea."

More than 60 million people now live in the Aral Region, and inflows to the lake have dropped likely due to climate change. 

This most recent desiccation is a result of dwindling snow and rain that typically feeds the lake, Micklin said. In addition to dwindling inflows, massive irrigation efforts of the regions two major rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, depleted nearby water levels, according to New Scientist. 

What was once the world’s fourth-largest lake is now split into several pieces:  the Northern and Southern Aral Seas, and further, the eastern and western lobes of the larger Southern Aral Sea.

http://www.wunderground.com/news/aral-sea-eastern-lobe-20140927

October Chill Targets the Midwest, East This Weekend

By Linda Lam
Published: September 29, 2014

As the calendar shifts to October, expect a plunge of chilly air to arrive in time for the month's first weekend in the Midwest and East.
If you long for summer's return in these areas, we hope you enjoy the next few days.
Parts of the northern Plains and southern Canada saw record hot temperatures so late in the season at the end of this past week. Williston, North Dakota and Miles City, Montana both saw temperatures soar to 97 degrees this past Thursday. 

Sunday, Caribou, Maine basked in 84-degree warmth, the hottest temperature on record so late in the season, there. Daily record highs were also set Sunday in at least a dozen other northern cities, including Newark (87), Providence (86), Sault Ste. Marie (80) and Duluth (81). 

Changes, however, are on the way late this week into the weekend. An upper-atmospheric trough will carve southward into the East and Midwest, while a corresponding upper-atmospheric ridge builds into the West. The past few days we have had a ridge in the East and a trough in the West.
This pattern change will bring temperatures that are 20-30 degrees colder for some locations in the northern Plains. Temperatures will also be cooler in parts of the Midwest and Northeast, where highs will go from the 70s and 80s this past weekend, to the 50s and 60s next weekend.

With this fresh plunge of cold air, expect some frost and even freeze conditions from parts of the northern Plains into the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and Ohio Valley during the morning this weekend.

As it cools down in the East, the warmth will make a comeback along the West coast, with highs 15-20 degrees warmer by next weekend. Los Angeles will go from highs in the 70s to highs in the 90s or triple digits in some inland locations. Also, the Deep South will remain quite pleasant for early October, with highs remaining generally in the 80s.

In addition to the changes in temperature, many locations will go from wet to dry and vice versa. 
A cold front will drive eastward late this week, with rain and thunderstorms sweeping from the Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes Thursday into the East Friday, and lingering in New England Saturday.
From Thursday night through Saturday, we can't rule out a few wet snowflakes mixing in with a cold, wind-driven light rain from northern North Dakota into northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and northern Michigan. 
In fact, there should be bands of lake-enhanced rain, and yes, perhaps some wet flakes in the hills away from the lakes, Friday through at least early Sunday from Upper Michigan to central and Upstate New York. Quite a calling card for fall, eh?

So fall conditions will likely return to the Midwest and Northeast next weekend, while summer won't let go of the West coast yet. Fall is definitely a season of change and this will be apparent to many as we head through early October.

Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Has Gone Dry

Zain Haidar
Published: September 29, 2014


In a landmark moment that will go without celebration, the eastern basin of the South Aral Sea has completely dried for the first time in modern history.
According to NASA, the Central Asian lake has been shrinking since the 1960s, when the Soviet government began diverting water in the area for agriculture. However, the lake hasn’t dried to such an extent until this summer.
"This is the first time the eastern basin has completely dried in modern times," Philip Micklin, a geographer emeritus from Western Michigan University and an Aral Sea expert, told NASA. "And it is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since Medieval desiccation associated with diversion of Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea."

More than 60 million people now live in the Aral Region, and inflows to the lake have dropped likely due to climate change.
This most recent desiccation is a result of dwindling snow and rain that typically feeds the lake, Micklin said. In addition to dwindling inflows, massive irrigation efforts of the regions two major rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, depleted nearby water levels, according to New Scientist.
What was once the world’s fourth-largest lake is now split into several pieces:  the Northern and Southern Aral Seas, and further, the eastern and western lobes of the larger Southern Aral Sea.
As Slate reports, the lake’s gradual disappearance is making the region’s seasons more extreme.
The South Aral’s eastern lobe almost completely dried in 2009 but made a comeback in 2010, according to NASA.

Human-Caused Climate Change Contributed to Weather Extremes

By Eric Zerkel
Published: September 29, 2014


Scientists announced Monday that human-caused climate change contributed to and/or amplified nine of 2013's most extreme weather events, making one of the most definitive statements yet on the direct link between individual weather extremes and human-induced climate change.
In a new report released in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) and organized by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 20 different groups of scientists studied how 16 extreme weather events came to fruition in 2013. In their analyses, the different groups conducted independent peer-reviewed scientific studies on the same events with the hope of sorting out human influences from natural variation in climate and weather.
The report found strong evidence that human-caused climate change -- particularly the burning of fossil fuels -- amplified temperature related events, including five heat waves across the globe. Less compelling evidence linked humans to the drought in California. On the other hand, the report found no link between humans and Winter Storm Atlas, which dumped up to 55 inches of snow on South Dakota last October, heavy rain in Colorado that flooded more than a dozen cities in and around the Denver metro area and heavy rain and flooding events in Europe.
The scientists hope that the report will help bridge the gap between the public, which sometimes incorrectly correlates weather events with climate change, and the science community, which looks to provide a scientific foundation to the link between the two.
Here are some notable highlights for some of the extreme events:

Australia, Japan, China and Korea's Heat Waves

Of all the events the various studies analyzed in the report, scientists were the most adamant about the link between human-caused climate change and a rash of extreme heat waves in 2013.
"The findings indicate that human-caused climate change greatly increased the risk for the extreme heat waves assessed in this report," the report's authors said in part.
For instance, Australia experienced the hottest year on record in more than a century, prompting the country's meteorological bureau to adjust the color scale on its maps to incorporate more extreme temperatures, Mashable reports. All three independent studies on Australia linked the event to human-induced climate change.
Speaking on the event, Peter Stott of the U.K.'s meteorology office, one of the study's editors, told the Associated Press that "it's almost impossible" to explain the event without human-induced climate change.
Other examples took the human link a step further, hinting at the future of more extreme temperature highs in the decades to come. That example came from Korea, which experienced one of its hottest summers on record in 2013. Temperatures there were the warmest in more than 50 years, sparking a massive energy demand that crippled the country's power supply, the Wall Street Journal notes.
The team of scientists that studied the Korean heat wave not only linked the warm temperatures directly to emissions from human sources, but also said that extremely warm summers are now 10 times more likely in Korea than they were before humans entered the fold.
"We find that a strong long-term increasing trend in the observed SST [Sea Surface Temperatures] near northern East Asia during the past 60 years cannot be explained without the inclusion of recent human-induced greenhouse gas forcing," the study concluded in part.

California's Drought

Three separate studies analyzed California's ongoing worst drought on record and two of them found no evidence directly linking humans to the event. However, the first study, led by Daniel Swain of Stanford University, did find that the same atmospheric conditions -- namely an exceptional ridge of high pressure that parked over the Northern Pacific starting in January 2013 and was dubbed the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" -- that led to California's drought "occur much more frequently in the present climate than in the absence of human emissions."

Winter Storm Atlas and South Dakota/Colorado's Extreme Rainfall

While authors of the individual studies analayzing both of these events didn't directly link humans to their occurrence, the studies did find that human-induced climate change would actually make extreme precipitation events like these less likely in both areas in the coming years. However, the authors of the study on Colorado's rain and flooding were quick to note that though an area like Colorado is less likely to see extreme rainfall like 2013's event, the globe as a whole is forecast to experience more extreme rainfall events by the end of the century.

Hail slams Detroit, Tornado watch for Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming

Severe storms bring the threat of heavy rain, large hail and even the possibility of tornadoes into the High Plains Monday evening.
Denver has already seen impacts, as an impressive hail storm slammed into the metro area around 2 p.m., dropping hail as large as golf balls.
Photos posted to social media show what looks like snow, but it's actually a thick sheet of hail covering highways and grassy areas. Denver's 9 News reports Cherry Creek schools delayed dismissing students because of the weather.

No major damage was reported, but the threat isn’t over. A tornado watch stretches from the Denver metro north and east into extreme southern Wyoming, western Nebraska and extreme western Kansas. The watch is set to expire at 9 p.m. local time.
A severe thunderstorm watch is also posted for 9 p.m. for portions of southern Colorado and eastern New Mexico into the extreme western Oklahoma and Texas panhandles.

Mount St. Helens shows signs of reawakening

Mount St. Helens shows signs of reawakening

Though the mountain isn't getting as much publicity these days, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey are marking the anniversary to highlight new eruption warning technology they've installed around the volcano since then and to remind people that Mount St. Helens will continue to rebuilt itself.

The eruption that started a decade ago was the second of two dome-building phases.

The first one started after the explosive eruption of May 18, 1980. Twenty lava eruptions occurred over the next six years.

Geologists were surprised that the mountain stopped erupting in 1986. "Many of us were expecting it to continue a while," said USGS seismologist Seth Moran.

The second lava dome, which started appearing in 2004, appeared at a different spot in the crater. Lava that appeared from 2004-08 was much more solid than during the earlier phase.

Even though the lava dome hasn't erupted since 2008, its shape still is changing.

"As it cools, it fractures and settles and falls apart," said Dan Dzurisin, a USGS geologist. Rockfall has also been changing the shape of the crater rim.

And 5 miles below the volcano, there are signs that the magma chamber that fueled both eruptions is recharging. Dzurisin said the USGS is focusing on the rate of recharging and whether the magma can compress in the chamber, rather than flowing toward an outlet to the earth's surface.

Magma levels rising inside Mount St. Helens

Though the USGS was able to predict the 2004 eruption by monitoring earthquakes, "it exposed some weaknesses in our monitoring," Moran said.

In September of 2004, the USGS had only one GPS device near the volcano, at Johnston Ridge. That device did  start to move during the eruption. After the new dome appeared, the USGS landed a helicopter in the crater and had a worker put a GPS there.

"Three days later there was an explosion that wiped out that site," Moran said. "That really forced us to get creative about how to get instruments in close."

The scientists then devised a way of dropping a seismometer from a helicopter.

Since then, the agency has installed numerous GPS receivers around the Northwest. The instruments continually measure a change of location of as little as one millimeter. Data from the receivers combined with video from remote cameras had allowed the USGS to reduce the exposure of its researchers to hazardous situations, Dzurisin said.

Over the centuries, Mount St. Helens has gone through phases of explosive eruptions and periods of rebuilding itself with magma eruptions.

Geologists expect future dome-building eruptions at the volcano. "It looks like Mount St. Helens is getting ready to erupt again and it can happen in the order of years to decades," Moran said.

Those eruptions will likely be similar to the one that started a decade ago and no massive eruption like the one in 1980 is expected. "Part of that is that there isn't as nearby big a cork," Moran said.

Eventually, the crater will fill in and the peak may return to the lovely rounded shape it had before 1980.