Misty sunrise, happy dog

Image via Sam Kelly.

Sam Kelly captured this image on a chilly morning in December 2017 in
Dedham, a village in northeast Essex, England. Sam said:

Thermals were required … Brrr!

Thanks Sam! By the way, Sam’s photo was a finalist in a banner competition for the Facebook page Essex Life, for the month of February 2018. It didn’t win, but we still love it. See the other finalists here.

Thank you all so much for your entries to the first banner competition of 2018, the response has been incredible! After…

Posted by Essex Life on Thursday, January 25, 2018

Bottom line: Photo of sunrise in Dedham, England.

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from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2Edn4ri

Image via Sam Kelly.

Sam Kelly captured this image on a chilly morning in December 2017 in
Dedham, a village in northeast Essex, England. Sam said:

Thermals were required … Brrr!

Thanks Sam! By the way, Sam’s photo was a finalist in a banner competition for the Facebook page Essex Life, for the month of February 2018. It didn’t win, but we still love it. See the other finalists here.

Thank you all so much for your entries to the first banner competition of 2018, the response has been incredible! After…

Posted by Essex Life on Thursday, January 25, 2018

Bottom line: Photo of sunrise in Dedham, England.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2Edn4ri

News digest – cancer survival, breast cancer drug, cancer jab trials, and… vaping

• Cancer survival is increasing across the globe, according to a new study that we reported on. But there are wide variations between countries, and the UK is lagging behind comparable nations for many common cancers. The Mirror focused on funding cuts and the Daily Mail blamed slow diagnosis and poor treatment.  
• A drug for certain types of breast cancer has been approved for the NHS in England, reports the Guardian. Pertuzumab (Perjeta) can increase survival for women who have incurable advanced breast cancer by 16 months, and was approved on the NHS in England after a price cut was negotiated with the manufacturer. Check out our news report for more.
• The proportion of women taking up NHS breast screening is at the lowest level in a decade, according to the Independent. Women aged 50-70 are invited for a mammogram every three years, and only 71% attended appointments in 2016-17.
• The number of men dying from prostate cancer has overtaken female breast cancer deaths for the first time in the UK, reports BBC News. An ageing population means more men are developing and dying from the disease, while advances in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment are paying off. The Guardian also had the story.
• A cancer jab that aims to eliminate tumours even when they have spread is about to start human trials. US scientists found that injecting two drugs directly into tumours in mice kills the cancer cells, along with those that have spread, by boosting the immune system. The Telegraph and The Sun had this story.
• The UK has been accused of hypocrisy on overseas tobacco control, according to The Guardian. It reports that the government has been lobbying on behalf of UK-based tobacco giants operating overseas, despite spending millions of pounds trying to curb smoking rates abroad. We’ve talked before about how tobacco remains a global threat and through our international tobacco control programme we’re keeping the pressure on to reduce smoking rates worldwide.
• A revolution in health care is coming, says The Economist. The report focuses on how the data generated by new technology, health and exercise apps could help shape diagnosis and treatment of conditions, including cancer.

And finally

• Vaping ‘may raise the risk of cancer’, according to a number of news outlets. But as we and others pointed out the study that prompted the reports was done in cells in a lab and mice, not people. And the researchers didn’t compare e-cig vapour with tobacco smoke. It’s an interesting study, but the findings don’t match what featured in the headlines. The evidence so far shows that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking.

Evidence shows that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking, despite today’s alarming headlines (1/5) pic.twitter.com/7WDhV23OaN

— Cancer Research UK (@CR_UK) January 30, 2018

Michael

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/2nCE144

• Cancer survival is increasing across the globe, according to a new study that we reported on. But there are wide variations between countries, and the UK is lagging behind comparable nations for many common cancers. The Mirror focused on funding cuts and the Daily Mail blamed slow diagnosis and poor treatment.  
• A drug for certain types of breast cancer has been approved for the NHS in England, reports the Guardian. Pertuzumab (Perjeta) can increase survival for women who have incurable advanced breast cancer by 16 months, and was approved on the NHS in England after a price cut was negotiated with the manufacturer. Check out our news report for more.
• The proportion of women taking up NHS breast screening is at the lowest level in a decade, according to the Independent. Women aged 50-70 are invited for a mammogram every three years, and only 71% attended appointments in 2016-17.
• The number of men dying from prostate cancer has overtaken female breast cancer deaths for the first time in the UK, reports BBC News. An ageing population means more men are developing and dying from the disease, while advances in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment are paying off. The Guardian also had the story.
• A cancer jab that aims to eliminate tumours even when they have spread is about to start human trials. US scientists found that injecting two drugs directly into tumours in mice kills the cancer cells, along with those that have spread, by boosting the immune system. The Telegraph and The Sun had this story.
• The UK has been accused of hypocrisy on overseas tobacco control, according to The Guardian. It reports that the government has been lobbying on behalf of UK-based tobacco giants operating overseas, despite spending millions of pounds trying to curb smoking rates abroad. We’ve talked before about how tobacco remains a global threat and through our international tobacco control programme we’re keeping the pressure on to reduce smoking rates worldwide.
• A revolution in health care is coming, says The Economist. The report focuses on how the data generated by new technology, health and exercise apps could help shape diagnosis and treatment of conditions, including cancer.

And finally

• Vaping ‘may raise the risk of cancer’, according to a number of news outlets. But as we and others pointed out the study that prompted the reports was done in cells in a lab and mice, not people. And the researchers didn’t compare e-cig vapour with tobacco smoke. It’s an interesting study, but the findings don’t match what featured in the headlines. The evidence so far shows that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking.

Evidence shows that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking, despite today’s alarming headlines (1/5) pic.twitter.com/7WDhV23OaN

— Cancer Research UK (@CR_UK) January 30, 2018

Michael

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/2nCE144

Big Dipper stars point to North Star

Tonight, if you can find the Big Dipper in the northern sky, you can find the North Star, Polaris. The Big Dipper is low in the northeast sky at nightfall, but it’ll climb upward during the evening hours, to reach its high point for the night in the wee hours after midnight. A well-known trick for finding Polaris, the legendary North Star, is that the two outermost stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper point to it. Those stars are Dubhe and Merak. They are well known among amateur astronomers as The Pointers.

Can’t find the Big Dipper? Yes, you can!

It really does look like a dipper, and it’s pretty bright. You just have to look for it at a time when it’s visible. And that’ll be tonight, and for many nights to come over the coming weeks and months … in the north in mid-evening. Once you find the Big Dipper, use the pointer stars to find Polaris, the North Star.

The Big Dipper isn’t a constellation, by the way. Instead, it’s an asterism, just a recognizable pattern of stars on the sky’s dome. It’s part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Greater Bear.

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View larger. | Time of year doesn’t matter. If you can see the Big Dipper, you can find Polaris, the North Star. Tom Wildoner of LeisurelyScientist.com shared this shot with us. He captured it around 3:30 a.m. in the month of July. Thanks, Tom!

The two outer stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper always point to Polaris, the North Star. Image by Abhijit Juvekar in India.

Bottom line: Use the Big Dipper to find Polaris, the North Star.

A planisphere is virtually indispensable for beginning stargazers. Order your EarthSky Planisphere today.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/16QNgUt

Tonight, if you can find the Big Dipper in the northern sky, you can find the North Star, Polaris. The Big Dipper is low in the northeast sky at nightfall, but it’ll climb upward during the evening hours, to reach its high point for the night in the wee hours after midnight. A well-known trick for finding Polaris, the legendary North Star, is that the two outermost stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper point to it. Those stars are Dubhe and Merak. They are well known among amateur astronomers as The Pointers.

Can’t find the Big Dipper? Yes, you can!

It really does look like a dipper, and it’s pretty bright. You just have to look for it at a time when it’s visible. And that’ll be tonight, and for many nights to come over the coming weeks and months … in the north in mid-evening. Once you find the Big Dipper, use the pointer stars to find Polaris, the North Star.

The Big Dipper isn’t a constellation, by the way. Instead, it’s an asterism, just a recognizable pattern of stars on the sky’s dome. It’s part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Greater Bear.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

View larger. | Time of year doesn’t matter. If you can see the Big Dipper, you can find Polaris, the North Star. Tom Wildoner of LeisurelyScientist.com shared this shot with us. He captured it around 3:30 a.m. in the month of July. Thanks, Tom!

The two outer stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper always point to Polaris, the North Star. Image by Abhijit Juvekar in India.

Bottom line: Use the Big Dipper to find Polaris, the North Star.

A planisphere is virtually indispensable for beginning stargazers. Order your EarthSky Planisphere today.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/16QNgUt

Is warming in the Arctic behind this year's crazy winter weather?

Jennifer Francis is a Research Professor, Rutgers University.  This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Damage from extreme weather events during 2017 racked up the biggest-ever bills for the U.S. Most of these events involved conditions that align intuitively with global warming: heat records, drought, wildfires, coastal flooding, hurricane damage and heavy rainfall.

Paradoxical, though, are possible ties between climate change and the recent spate of frigid weeks in eastern North America. A very new and “hot topic” in climate change research is the notion that rapid warming and wholesale melting of the Arctic may be playing a role in causing persistent cold spells.

It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to suppose that losing half the Arctic sea-ice cover in only 30 years might be wreaking havoc with the weather, but exactly how is not yet clear. As a research atmospheric scientist, I study how warming in the Arctic is affecting temperature regions around the world. Can we say changes to the Arctic driven by global warming have had a role in the freakish winter weather North America has experienced?

A ‘dipole’ of abnormal temperatures

Weird and destructive weather was in the news almost constantly during 2017, and 2018 seems to be following the same script. Most U.S. Easterners shivered their way through the end of 2017 into the New Year, while Westerners longed for rain to dampen parched soils and extinguish wildfires. Blizzards have plagued the Eastern Seaboard – notably the “bomb cyclone” storm on Jan. 4, 2018 – while California’s Sierra Nevada stand nearly bare of snow.

A study in contrasts: Warming near Alaska and the Pacific Ocean are ‘ingredients’ to a weather pattern where cold air from the Arctic plunges deep into North America. NASA Earth Observatory, CC BY

This story is becoming a familiar one, as similar conditions have played out in four of the past five winters. Some politicians in Washington D.C., including President Trump, have used the unusual cold to question global warming. But if they looked at the big picture, they’d see that eastern cold spells are a relative fluke in the Northern Hemisphere as a whole and that most areas are warmer than normal.

A warm, dry western North America occurring in combination with a cold, snowy east is not unusual, but the prevalence and persistence of this pattern in recent years have piqued the interests of climate researchers.

The jet stream – a fast, upper-level river of wind that encircles the Northern Hemisphere – plays a critical role. When the jet stream swoops far north and south in a big wave, extreme conditions can result. During the past few weeks, a big swing northward, forming what’s called a “ridge” of persistent atmospheric pressure, persisted off the West Coast along with a deep southward dip, or a “trough,” over the East.

New terms have been coined to describe these stubborn features: “The North American Winter Temperature Dipole,” the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” over the West, and the “Terribly Tenacious Trough” in the East.

While the eastern U.S. suffered very cold temperatures in the recent cold snap, much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere saw higher-than-average air temperatures. NOAA, CC BY

Regardless what it’s called, this dipole pattern – abnormally high temperatures over much of the West along with chilly conditions in the East – has dominated North American weather in four of the past five winters. January 2017 was a stark exception, when a strong El Niño flipped the ridge-trough pattern, dumping record-breaking rain and snowpack on California while the east enjoyed a mild month.

Two other important features are conspicuous in the dipole temperature pattern: extremely warm temperatures in the Arctic near Alaska and warm ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific. Several new studies point to these “ingredients” as key to the recent years with a persistent dipole.

It takes two to tango

What role does warming – specifically the warming ocean and air temperatures in the Arctic – play in this warm-West/cool-East weather pattern? The explanation goes like this.

Pacific Ocean temperatures fluctuate naturally owing to short-lived phenomena such as El Niño/La Niña and longer, decades-length patterns. Scientists have long recognized that those variations affect weather patterns across North America and beyond.

When a persistent area of atmospheric pressure stays in the western U.S., air from the Arctic pours into the U.S, causing a split between the warm and dry West and the cold East. Mesocyclone2014 and David Swain, CC BY-SA

The new twist in this story is that the Arctic has been warming at at least double the pace of the rest of the globe, meaning that the difference in temperature between the Arctic and areas farther south has been shrinking. This matters because the north/south temperature difference is one of the main drivers of the jet stream. The jet stream creates the high- and low-pressure systems that dictate our blue skies and storminess while also steering them. Anything that affects the jet stream will also affect our weather.

When ocean temperatures off the West Coast of North America are warmer than normal, as they have been most of the time since winter 2013, the jet stream tends to form a ridge of high pressure along the West Coast, causing storms to be diverted away from California and leaving much of the West high and dry.

If these warm ocean temperatures occur in combination with abnormally warm conditions near Alaska, the extra heat from the Arctic can intensify the ridge, causing it to reach farther northward, become more persistent, and pump even more heat into the region near Alaska. And in recent years, Alaska has experienced periods of record warm temperatures, owing in part to reduced sea ice.

My colleagues and I have called this combination of natural and climate change-related effects “It Takes Two to Tango,” a concept that may help explain the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge observed frequently since 2013. Several new studies support this human-caused boost of a natural pattern, though controversy still exists regarding the mechanisms linking rapid Arctic warming with weather patterns farther south in the mid-latitudes.

More extreme weather ahead?

In response to the strengthened western ridge of atmospheric pressure, the winds of the jet stream usually also form a deeper, stronger trough downstream. Deep troughs act like an open refrigerator door, allowing frigid Arctic air to plunge southward, bringing misery to areas ill-prepared to handle it. Snowstorms in Texas, ice storms in Georgia and chilly snowbirds in Florida can all be blamed on the Terribly Tenacious Trough of December 2017 and January 2018.

Cold weather from the Arctic combined with warm tropical air fueled a storm that produced well over a foot of snow and spots of flooding in Boston. AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

Adding icing on the cake is the tendency for so-called “nor’easters,” such as the “bomb cyclone” that struck on Jan. 4, to form along the East Coast when the trough’s southwest winds align along the Atlantic Seaboard. The resulting intense contrast in temperature between the cold land and Gulf Stream-warmed ocean provides the fuel for these ferocious storms.

The big question is whether climate change will make dipole patterns – along with their attendant tendencies to produce extreme weather – more common in the future. The answer is yes and no.

It is widely expected that global warming will produce fewer low-temperature records, a tendency already observed. But it may also be true that cold spells will become more persistent as dipole patterns intensify, a tendency that also seems to be occurring.

It’s hard to nail down whether this weather pattern – overall warmer winters in North America but longer cold snaps – will persist. Understanding the mechanisms behind these complex interactions between natural influences and human-caused changes is challenging.

Nevertheless, research is moving forward rapidly as creative new metrics are developed. Our best tools for looking into the future are sophisticated computer programs, but they, too, struggle to simulate these complicated behaviors of the climate system. Given the importance of predicting extreme weather and its impacts on many aspects of our lives, researchers must continue to unravel connections between climate change and weather to help us prepare for the likely ongoing tantrums by Mother Nature.

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2DVWpjf

Jennifer Francis is a Research Professor, Rutgers University.  This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Damage from extreme weather events during 2017 racked up the biggest-ever bills for the U.S. Most of these events involved conditions that align intuitively with global warming: heat records, drought, wildfires, coastal flooding, hurricane damage and heavy rainfall.

Paradoxical, though, are possible ties between climate change and the recent spate of frigid weeks in eastern North America. A very new and “hot topic” in climate change research is the notion that rapid warming and wholesale melting of the Arctic may be playing a role in causing persistent cold spells.

It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to suppose that losing half the Arctic sea-ice cover in only 30 years might be wreaking havoc with the weather, but exactly how is not yet clear. As a research atmospheric scientist, I study how warming in the Arctic is affecting temperature regions around the world. Can we say changes to the Arctic driven by global warming have had a role in the freakish winter weather North America has experienced?

A ‘dipole’ of abnormal temperatures

Weird and destructive weather was in the news almost constantly during 2017, and 2018 seems to be following the same script. Most U.S. Easterners shivered their way through the end of 2017 into the New Year, while Westerners longed for rain to dampen parched soils and extinguish wildfires. Blizzards have plagued the Eastern Seaboard – notably the “bomb cyclone” storm on Jan. 4, 2018 – while California’s Sierra Nevada stand nearly bare of snow.

A study in contrasts: Warming near Alaska and the Pacific Ocean are ‘ingredients’ to a weather pattern where cold air from the Arctic plunges deep into North America. NASA Earth Observatory, CC BY

This story is becoming a familiar one, as similar conditions have played out in four of the past five winters. Some politicians in Washington D.C., including President Trump, have used the unusual cold to question global warming. But if they looked at the big picture, they’d see that eastern cold spells are a relative fluke in the Northern Hemisphere as a whole and that most areas are warmer than normal.

A warm, dry western North America occurring in combination with a cold, snowy east is not unusual, but the prevalence and persistence of this pattern in recent years have piqued the interests of climate researchers.

The jet stream – a fast, upper-level river of wind that encircles the Northern Hemisphere – plays a critical role. When the jet stream swoops far north and south in a big wave, extreme conditions can result. During the past few weeks, a big swing northward, forming what’s called a “ridge” of persistent atmospheric pressure, persisted off the West Coast along with a deep southward dip, or a “trough,” over the East.

New terms have been coined to describe these stubborn features: “The North American Winter Temperature Dipole,” the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” over the West, and the “Terribly Tenacious Trough” in the East.

While the eastern U.S. suffered very cold temperatures in the recent cold snap, much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere saw higher-than-average air temperatures. NOAA, CC BY

Regardless what it’s called, this dipole pattern – abnormally high temperatures over much of the West along with chilly conditions in the East – has dominated North American weather in four of the past five winters. January 2017 was a stark exception, when a strong El Niño flipped the ridge-trough pattern, dumping record-breaking rain and snowpack on California while the east enjoyed a mild month.

Two other important features are conspicuous in the dipole temperature pattern: extremely warm temperatures in the Arctic near Alaska and warm ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific. Several new studies point to these “ingredients” as key to the recent years with a persistent dipole.

It takes two to tango

What role does warming – specifically the warming ocean and air temperatures in the Arctic – play in this warm-West/cool-East weather pattern? The explanation goes like this.

Pacific Ocean temperatures fluctuate naturally owing to short-lived phenomena such as El Niño/La Niña and longer, decades-length patterns. Scientists have long recognized that those variations affect weather patterns across North America and beyond.

When a persistent area of atmospheric pressure stays in the western U.S., air from the Arctic pours into the U.S, causing a split between the warm and dry West and the cold East. Mesocyclone2014 and David Swain, CC BY-SA

The new twist in this story is that the Arctic has been warming at at least double the pace of the rest of the globe, meaning that the difference in temperature between the Arctic and areas farther south has been shrinking. This matters because the north/south temperature difference is one of the main drivers of the jet stream. The jet stream creates the high- and low-pressure systems that dictate our blue skies and storminess while also steering them. Anything that affects the jet stream will also affect our weather.

When ocean temperatures off the West Coast of North America are warmer than normal, as they have been most of the time since winter 2013, the jet stream tends to form a ridge of high pressure along the West Coast, causing storms to be diverted away from California and leaving much of the West high and dry.

If these warm ocean temperatures occur in combination with abnormally warm conditions near Alaska, the extra heat from the Arctic can intensify the ridge, causing it to reach farther northward, become more persistent, and pump even more heat into the region near Alaska. And in recent years, Alaska has experienced periods of record warm temperatures, owing in part to reduced sea ice.

My colleagues and I have called this combination of natural and climate change-related effects “It Takes Two to Tango,” a concept that may help explain the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge observed frequently since 2013. Several new studies support this human-caused boost of a natural pattern, though controversy still exists regarding the mechanisms linking rapid Arctic warming with weather patterns farther south in the mid-latitudes.

More extreme weather ahead?

In response to the strengthened western ridge of atmospheric pressure, the winds of the jet stream usually also form a deeper, stronger trough downstream. Deep troughs act like an open refrigerator door, allowing frigid Arctic air to plunge southward, bringing misery to areas ill-prepared to handle it. Snowstorms in Texas, ice storms in Georgia and chilly snowbirds in Florida can all be blamed on the Terribly Tenacious Trough of December 2017 and January 2018.

Cold weather from the Arctic combined with warm tropical air fueled a storm that produced well over a foot of snow and spots of flooding in Boston. AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

Adding icing on the cake is the tendency for so-called “nor’easters,” such as the “bomb cyclone” that struck on Jan. 4, to form along the East Coast when the trough’s southwest winds align along the Atlantic Seaboard. The resulting intense contrast in temperature between the cold land and Gulf Stream-warmed ocean provides the fuel for these ferocious storms.

The big question is whether climate change will make dipole patterns – along with their attendant tendencies to produce extreme weather – more common in the future. The answer is yes and no.

It is widely expected that global warming will produce fewer low-temperature records, a tendency already observed. But it may also be true that cold spells will become more persistent as dipole patterns intensify, a tendency that also seems to be occurring.

It’s hard to nail down whether this weather pattern – overall warmer winters in North America but longer cold snaps – will persist. Understanding the mechanisms behind these complex interactions between natural influences and human-caused changes is challenging.

Nevertheless, research is moving forward rapidly as creative new metrics are developed. Our best tools for looking into the future are sophisticated computer programs, but they, too, struggle to simulate these complicated behaviors of the climate system. Given the importance of predicting extreme weather and its impacts on many aspects of our lives, researchers must continue to unravel connections between climate change and weather to help us prepare for the likely ongoing tantrums by Mother Nature.

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2DVWpjf

New research, January 22-28, 2018

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

The figure is from paper #30.

Climate change

1. Whole Atmosphere Simulation of Anthropogenic Climate Change

"The basic result was that even as the lower atmosphere gradually warms, the upper atmosphere rapidly cools. The simulations employed constant low solar activity conditions, to remove the effects of variable solar and geomagnetic activity. Global mean annual mean temperature increased at a rate of +0.2 K/decade at the surface and +0.4 K/decade in the upper troposphere, but decreased by about -1 K/decade in the stratosphere-mesosphere, and -2.8 K/decade in the thermosphere. Near the mesopause, temperature decreases were small compared to the interannual variation, so trends in that region are uncertain."

2. Towards the Application of Decadal Climate Predictions

3. Downscaling future climate change projections over Puerto Rico using a non-hydrostatic atmospheric model

4. High-Resolution Historical Climate Simulations over Alaska

Temperature, Precipitation, and Wind

5. Trend in the co-occurrence of extreme daily rainfall in West Africa since 1950

6. Climate change impacts on rainfall and temperature in sugarcane growing Upper Gangetic Plains of India

7. Do SST gradients drive the monthly climatological surface wind convergence over the tropical Atlantic?

8. Global, Regional, and Megacity Trends in the Highest Temperature of the Year: Diagnostics and Evidence for Accelerating Trends

"A global increase of 0.19°C per decade during the past 50 years (through 2015) accelerated to 0.25°C per decade during the last 30 years, a faster increase than in the mean annual temperature. Strong positive 30-year trends are detected in large regions of Eurasia and Australia with rates higher than 0.60°C per decade. In cities with more than 5 million inhabitants, where most heat-related fatalities occur, the average change is 0.33°C per decade, while some east Asia cities, Paris, Moscow, and Houston have experienced changes higher than 0.60°C per decade."

9. Temperature and Precipitation trends in Kashmir valley, North Western Himalayas

10. Towards predicting changes in the land monsoon rainfall a decade in advance

11. A new assessment in total and extreme rainfall trends over central and southern Peruvian Andes during 1965–2010

12. Linear and nonlinear hydrological cycle responses to increasing sea surface temperature

Extreme Events

13. Extreme high-temperature events over East Asia in 1.5°C and 2°C warmer futures: Analysis of NCAR CESM low-warming experiments

"The results show that the magnitude of warming in East Asia is approximately 0.2°C higher than the global mean. Most populous subregions, including eastern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan, will see more intense, more frequent and longer lasting extreme temperature events under 1.5°C and 2°C warming. The 0.5°C lower warming will help avoid 35%-46% of the increases in extreme high-temperature events in terms of intensity, frequency and duration in East Asia with maximal avoidance values (37%-49%) occurring in Mongolia. Thus, it is beneficial for East Asia to limit the warming target to 1.5°C rather than 2°C."

14. Super Storm Desmond: a process-based assessment

15. Linking Hadley circulation and storm tracks in a conceptual model of the atmospheric energy balance

16. Local-scale analysis of temperature patterns over Poland during heatwave events

17. Spatiotemporal changes in the size and shape of heat waves over North America

18. Avoiding population exposure to heat-related extremes: demographic change vs climate change

19. Surveying of Heat waves Impact on the Urban Heat Islands: Case study, the Karaj City in Iran

Climate Forcings and Feedbacks

20. Probability distribution for the visually observed fractional cloud cover over the ocean

21. The contrasting climate response to tropical and extratropical energy perturbations

22. Inferred Net Aerosol Forcing Based on Historical Climate Changes: a Review

23. Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity Obtained from Multi-Millennial Runs of Two GFDL Climate Models

"Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), defined as the long-term change in global mean surface air temperature in response to doubling atmospheric CO₂, is usually computed from short atmospheric simulations over a mixed layer ocean, or inferred using a linear regression over a short-time period of adjustment. We report the actual ECS from multi-millenial simulations of two GFDL general circulation models (GCMs), ESM2M and CM3 of 3.3 K and 4.8 K, respectively. Both values are ~1 K higher than estimates for the same models reported in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change obtained by regressing the Earth's energy imbalance against temperature. This underestimate is mainly due to changes in the climate feedback parameter (−α) within the first century after atmospheric CO₂ has stabilized. For both GCMs it is possible to estimate ECS with linear regression to within 0.3 K by increasing CO₂ at 1% per year to doubling and using years 51-350 after CO₂ is constant. We show that changes in −α differ between the two GCMs and are strongly tied to the changes in both vertical velocity at 500 hPa (ω₅₀₀) and estimated inversion strength (EIS) that the GCMs experience during the progression towards the equilibrium. This suggests that while cloud physics parametrizations are important for determining the strength of −α, the substantially different atmospheric state resulting from a changed SST pattern may be of equal importance."

24. Sulfate aerosol in the Arctic: source attribution and radiative forcing

Cryosphere

25. Simple models for the simulation of submarine melt for a Greenland glacial system model

26. Rate of mass loss across the instability threshold for Thwaites Glacier determines rate of mass loss for entire basin

27. Seafloor geomorphology of western Antarctic Peninsula bays: a signature of ice flow behaviour

28. Monitoring glacier albedo as a proxy to derive summer and annual surface mass balances from optical remote-sensing data

29. Arctic sea ice in a 1.5 ° C warmer world

"Based on the high-sensitivity observations, we find that Arctic September sea ice is lost with low probability (P≈10%) for global warming of +1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels and with very high probability (P>99%) for global warming of +2 ° C above pre-industrial levels. For the low-sensitivity observations, September sea ice is extremely unlikely to disappear for +1.5 ° C warming (P<<1%) and has low likelihood (P≈10%) to disappear even for +2 ° C global warming. For March, both observational records suggest a loss of 15% to 20% of Arctic sea-ice area for 1.5 ° C to 2 ° C global warming."

30. Spatiotemporal variability of snow depth across the Eurasian continent from 1966 to 2012

31. Ensemble-based assimilation of fractional snow-covered area satellite retrievals to estimate the snow distribution at Arctic sites

Atmospheric and Oceanic Circulation

32. Gulf Stream Excursions and Sectional Detachments Generate the Decadal Pulses in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

33. Multidecadal Variability in Global Surface Temperatures Related to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

"By influencing the ocean heat uptake efficiency and by shifting the pattern of heat uptake, global air temperatures are significantly altered on a multidecadal time scale by AMOC variability."

34. Winter North Atlantic Oscillation impact on European precipitation and drought under climate change

35. Disentangling global warming, multi-decadal variability, and El Niño in Pacific temperatures

Carbon Cycle

36. The carbon cycle response to two El Nino types: an observational study

37. Short and long-term controls on active layer and permafrost carbon turnover across the Arctic

38. Impact of priming on global soil carbon stocks

39. Coastal Erosion of Permafrost Soils along the Yukon Coastal Plain and Fluxes of Organic Carbon to the Canadian Beaufort Sea

40. Evaluation of forest CO₂ fluxes from sonde measurements in three different climatological areas including Borneo, Malaysia, and Iriomote and Hokkaido, Japan

41. Origin of elemental carbon in snow from western Siberia and northwestern European Russia during winter–spring 2014, 2015 and 2016

"In NW European Russia transportation and domestic combustion from Finland was important. A systematic underestimation was found in W Siberia at places where gas flaring was important, implying miscalculation or sources."

42. Inverse modelling of European CH₄ emissions during 2006–2012 using different inverse models and reassessed atmospheric observations

43. A Canadian upland forest soil profile and carbon stocks database

44. Characteristics of CO₂ Concentration and Flux in the Beijing Urban Area

45. Sources of uncertainty in modeled land carbon storage within and across three MIPs: Diagnosis with three new techniques

Hydrosphere

46. 21st century sea-level rise in line with the Paris accord

47. GPS Vertical Land Motion Corrections to Sea-Level Rise Estimates in the Pacific Northwest

48. Mechanism of Future Spring Drying in the Southwest U.S. in CMIP5 Models

Climate change impacts

Mankind

49. Warming autumns at high latitudes of Europe: an opportunity to lose or gain in cereal production?

"Warming autumns have insignificant potential for additional cereal yield gains. Even the latest maturing wheat cultivars would mature by the same time or earlier than currently when sown earlier. However, inter-annual variability in harvest times remains high, and hence many emerging risks may result from the elevated autumn precipitation in the future that will accompany delayed harvests."

50. Modeling indoor air carbon dioxide concentration using artificial neural network

51. Changes in terrestrial water stress and contributions of major factors under temperature rise constraint scenarios

52. Enabling private sector adaptation to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa

53. Changing risk of spring frost damage in grapevines due to climate change? A case study in the Swiss Rhone Valley

54. Breeding implications of drought stress under future climate for upland rice in Brazil

55. High-Resolution Monitoring of Weather Impacts on Infrastructure Networks using the Internet of Things

Biosphere

56. Geo-climatic factors drive diatom community distribution in tropical South American freshwaters

57. Adaptive evolution in the coccolithophore Gephyrocapsa oceanica following 1000 generations of selection under elevated CO2

58. Seasonality matters—The effects of past and projected seasonal climate change on the growth of native and exotic conifer species in Central Europe

59. Invasive alien plant species dynamics in the Himalayan region under climate change

"Two invasive species, Ageratum conyzoides and Parthenium hysterophorus, will lose overall suitable area by 2070, while Ageratina adenophora, Chromolaena odorata and Lantana camara will gain suitable areas and all of them will retain most of the current habitat as stable."

60. Phenology and time series trends of the dominant seasonal phytoplankton bloom across global scales

Climate change mitigation

61. Toward a global coal mining moratorium? A comparative analysis of coal mining policies in the USA, China, India and Australia

"We find that the norm of keeping coal in the ground remains essentially contested. Even in those countries that have introduced some form of a coal mining moratorium, the ban can easily be, or has already been, reversed. To the extent that the norm of keeping coal in the ground has momentum, it is primarily due to non-climate reasons: the Chinese moratorium was mostly an instance of industrial policy (aiming to protect Chinese coal companies and their workers from the overcapacity and low prices that are hitting the industry), while the USA’s lease restrictions were mainly motivated by concerns over fiscal justice."

62. Accounting for effects of carbon flows in LCA of biomass-based products—exploration and evaluation of a selection of existing methods

"We found that including the impact of land use and carbon cycles had a profound effect on the results for global warming impact potential. It changed the ranking among the different routes for PE production, sometimes making biomass-based PE worse than the fossil alternative."

63. An introduction to the special issue on the Benefits of Reduced Anthropogenic Climate changE (BRACE)

"Here, we provide a brief summary of the project design, expanding on its relation to the scenario literature, and an overview of the papers included in the issue. While we leave the discussion of results mainly to the synthesis paper, we extend it here to include some additional detail on the relationship between BRACE results and those from other avoided impact studies, and emphasize future research needs."

64. Analysis on energy demand and CO2 emissions in China following the Energy Production and Consumption Revolution Strategy and China Dream target

65. Analysis of the global carbon dioxide emissions from 2003 to 2015: convergence trends and regional contributions

66. As Bad as it Gets: How Climate Damage Functions Affect Growth and the Social Cost of Carbon

67. The value of knowledge accumulation on climate sensitivity uncertainty: comparison between perfect information, single stage and act then learn decisions

68. Perceptions of climate engineering in the South Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, and North American Arctic

69. Perceptions of climate change risk in The Bahamas

70.  How geoengineering scenarios frame assumptions and create expectations

71. Quantifying and comparing effects of climate engineering methods on the Earth system

72. The Signaling Effect of Emission Taxes Under International Duopoly

73. Current sources of carbon tetrachloride (CCl₄) in our atmosphere

74. Land restoration in food security programmes: synergies with climate change mitigation

Other papers

75. Near-surface permafrost aggradation in Northern Hemisphere peatlands shows regional and global trends during the past 6000 years

"Results indicate that permafrost was continuously present in peatlands during the last 6000 years in some present-day continuous permafrost zones and formed after 6000 BP in peatlands in the isolated to discontinuous permafrost regions. Rates of permafrost aggradation in peatlands generally increased after 3000 BP and were greatest between 750 and 0 BP, corresponding with neoglacial cooling and the Little Ice Age (LIA), respectively. Peak periods of permafrost thaw occurred after 250 BP, when permafrost aggradation in peatlands reached its maximum extent and as temperatures began warming after the LIA, suggesting that permafrost thaw is likely to continue in the future."

76. Climate variability in the subarctic area for the last 2 millennia

"A focus on the last 2 centuries shows a recent warming characterized by a well-marked warming trend parallel with increasing greenhouse gas emissions. It also shows a multidecadal variability likely due to natural processes acting on the internal climate system on a regional scale. A ∼ 16–30-year cycle is found in Alaska and seems to be linked to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, whereas ∼ 20–30- and ∼ 50–90-year periodicities characterize the North Atlantic climate variability, likely in relation with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. These regional features are probably linked to the sea ice cover fluctuations through ice–temperature positive feedback."

77. How will air quality change in South Asia by 2050?

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2nCj21j

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

The figure is from paper #30.

Climate change

1. Whole Atmosphere Simulation of Anthropogenic Climate Change

"The basic result was that even as the lower atmosphere gradually warms, the upper atmosphere rapidly cools. The simulations employed constant low solar activity conditions, to remove the effects of variable solar and geomagnetic activity. Global mean annual mean temperature increased at a rate of +0.2 K/decade at the surface and +0.4 K/decade in the upper troposphere, but decreased by about -1 K/decade in the stratosphere-mesosphere, and -2.8 K/decade in the thermosphere. Near the mesopause, temperature decreases were small compared to the interannual variation, so trends in that region are uncertain."

2. Towards the Application of Decadal Climate Predictions

3. Downscaling future climate change projections over Puerto Rico using a non-hydrostatic atmospheric model

4. High-Resolution Historical Climate Simulations over Alaska

Temperature, Precipitation, and Wind

5. Trend in the co-occurrence of extreme daily rainfall in West Africa since 1950

6. Climate change impacts on rainfall and temperature in sugarcane growing Upper Gangetic Plains of India

7. Do SST gradients drive the monthly climatological surface wind convergence over the tropical Atlantic?

8. Global, Regional, and Megacity Trends in the Highest Temperature of the Year: Diagnostics and Evidence for Accelerating Trends

"A global increase of 0.19°C per decade during the past 50 years (through 2015) accelerated to 0.25°C per decade during the last 30 years, a faster increase than in the mean annual temperature. Strong positive 30-year trends are detected in large regions of Eurasia and Australia with rates higher than 0.60°C per decade. In cities with more than 5 million inhabitants, where most heat-related fatalities occur, the average change is 0.33°C per decade, while some east Asia cities, Paris, Moscow, and Houston have experienced changes higher than 0.60°C per decade."

9. Temperature and Precipitation trends in Kashmir valley, North Western Himalayas

10. Towards predicting changes in the land monsoon rainfall a decade in advance

11. A new assessment in total and extreme rainfall trends over central and southern Peruvian Andes during 1965–2010

12. Linear and nonlinear hydrological cycle responses to increasing sea surface temperature

Extreme Events

13. Extreme high-temperature events over East Asia in 1.5°C and 2°C warmer futures: Analysis of NCAR CESM low-warming experiments

"The results show that the magnitude of warming in East Asia is approximately 0.2°C higher than the global mean. Most populous subregions, including eastern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan, will see more intense, more frequent and longer lasting extreme temperature events under 1.5°C and 2°C warming. The 0.5°C lower warming will help avoid 35%-46% of the increases in extreme high-temperature events in terms of intensity, frequency and duration in East Asia with maximal avoidance values (37%-49%) occurring in Mongolia. Thus, it is beneficial for East Asia to limit the warming target to 1.5°C rather than 2°C."

14. Super Storm Desmond: a process-based assessment

15. Linking Hadley circulation and storm tracks in a conceptual model of the atmospheric energy balance

16. Local-scale analysis of temperature patterns over Poland during heatwave events

17. Spatiotemporal changes in the size and shape of heat waves over North America

18. Avoiding population exposure to heat-related extremes: demographic change vs climate change

19. Surveying of Heat waves Impact on the Urban Heat Islands: Case study, the Karaj City in Iran

Climate Forcings and Feedbacks

20. Probability distribution for the visually observed fractional cloud cover over the ocean

21. The contrasting climate response to tropical and extratropical energy perturbations

22. Inferred Net Aerosol Forcing Based on Historical Climate Changes: a Review

23. Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity Obtained from Multi-Millennial Runs of Two GFDL Climate Models

"Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), defined as the long-term change in global mean surface air temperature in response to doubling atmospheric CO₂, is usually computed from short atmospheric simulations over a mixed layer ocean, or inferred using a linear regression over a short-time period of adjustment. We report the actual ECS from multi-millenial simulations of two GFDL general circulation models (GCMs), ESM2M and CM3 of 3.3 K and 4.8 K, respectively. Both values are ~1 K higher than estimates for the same models reported in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change obtained by regressing the Earth's energy imbalance against temperature. This underestimate is mainly due to changes in the climate feedback parameter (−α) within the first century after atmospheric CO₂ has stabilized. For both GCMs it is possible to estimate ECS with linear regression to within 0.3 K by increasing CO₂ at 1% per year to doubling and using years 51-350 after CO₂ is constant. We show that changes in −α differ between the two GCMs and are strongly tied to the changes in both vertical velocity at 500 hPa (ω₅₀₀) and estimated inversion strength (EIS) that the GCMs experience during the progression towards the equilibrium. This suggests that while cloud physics parametrizations are important for determining the strength of −α, the substantially different atmospheric state resulting from a changed SST pattern may be of equal importance."

24. Sulfate aerosol in the Arctic: source attribution and radiative forcing

Cryosphere

25. Simple models for the simulation of submarine melt for a Greenland glacial system model

26. Rate of mass loss across the instability threshold for Thwaites Glacier determines rate of mass loss for entire basin

27. Seafloor geomorphology of western Antarctic Peninsula bays: a signature of ice flow behaviour

28. Monitoring glacier albedo as a proxy to derive summer and annual surface mass balances from optical remote-sensing data

29. Arctic sea ice in a 1.5 ° C warmer world

"Based on the high-sensitivity observations, we find that Arctic September sea ice is lost with low probability (P≈10%) for global warming of +1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels and with very high probability (P>99%) for global warming of +2 ° C above pre-industrial levels. For the low-sensitivity observations, September sea ice is extremely unlikely to disappear for +1.5 ° C warming (P<<1%) and has low likelihood (P≈10%) to disappear even for +2 ° C global warming. For March, both observational records suggest a loss of 15% to 20% of Arctic sea-ice area for 1.5 ° C to 2 ° C global warming."

30. Spatiotemporal variability of snow depth across the Eurasian continent from 1966 to 2012

31. Ensemble-based assimilation of fractional snow-covered area satellite retrievals to estimate the snow distribution at Arctic sites

Atmospheric and Oceanic Circulation

32. Gulf Stream Excursions and Sectional Detachments Generate the Decadal Pulses in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

33. Multidecadal Variability in Global Surface Temperatures Related to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

"By influencing the ocean heat uptake efficiency and by shifting the pattern of heat uptake, global air temperatures are significantly altered on a multidecadal time scale by AMOC variability."

34. Winter North Atlantic Oscillation impact on European precipitation and drought under climate change

35. Disentangling global warming, multi-decadal variability, and El Niño in Pacific temperatures

Carbon Cycle

36. The carbon cycle response to two El Nino types: an observational study

37. Short and long-term controls on active layer and permafrost carbon turnover across the Arctic

38. Impact of priming on global soil carbon stocks

39. Coastal Erosion of Permafrost Soils along the Yukon Coastal Plain and Fluxes of Organic Carbon to the Canadian Beaufort Sea

40. Evaluation of forest CO₂ fluxes from sonde measurements in three different climatological areas including Borneo, Malaysia, and Iriomote and Hokkaido, Japan

41. Origin of elemental carbon in snow from western Siberia and northwestern European Russia during winter–spring 2014, 2015 and 2016

"In NW European Russia transportation and domestic combustion from Finland was important. A systematic underestimation was found in W Siberia at places where gas flaring was important, implying miscalculation or sources."

42. Inverse modelling of European CH₄ emissions during 2006–2012 using different inverse models and reassessed atmospheric observations

43. A Canadian upland forest soil profile and carbon stocks database

44. Characteristics of CO₂ Concentration and Flux in the Beijing Urban Area

45. Sources of uncertainty in modeled land carbon storage within and across three MIPs: Diagnosis with three new techniques

Hydrosphere

46. 21st century sea-level rise in line with the Paris accord

47. GPS Vertical Land Motion Corrections to Sea-Level Rise Estimates in the Pacific Northwest

48. Mechanism of Future Spring Drying in the Southwest U.S. in CMIP5 Models

Climate change impacts

Mankind

49. Warming autumns at high latitudes of Europe: an opportunity to lose or gain in cereal production?

"Warming autumns have insignificant potential for additional cereal yield gains. Even the latest maturing wheat cultivars would mature by the same time or earlier than currently when sown earlier. However, inter-annual variability in harvest times remains high, and hence many emerging risks may result from the elevated autumn precipitation in the future that will accompany delayed harvests."

50. Modeling indoor air carbon dioxide concentration using artificial neural network

51. Changes in terrestrial water stress and contributions of major factors under temperature rise constraint scenarios

52. Enabling private sector adaptation to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa

53. Changing risk of spring frost damage in grapevines due to climate change? A case study in the Swiss Rhone Valley

54. Breeding implications of drought stress under future climate for upland rice in Brazil

55. High-Resolution Monitoring of Weather Impacts on Infrastructure Networks using the Internet of Things

Biosphere

56. Geo-climatic factors drive diatom community distribution in tropical South American freshwaters

57. Adaptive evolution in the coccolithophore Gephyrocapsa oceanica following 1000 generations of selection under elevated CO2

58. Seasonality matters—The effects of past and projected seasonal climate change on the growth of native and exotic conifer species in Central Europe

59. Invasive alien plant species dynamics in the Himalayan region under climate change

"Two invasive species, Ageratum conyzoides and Parthenium hysterophorus, will lose overall suitable area by 2070, while Ageratina adenophora, Chromolaena odorata and Lantana camara will gain suitable areas and all of them will retain most of the current habitat as stable."

60. Phenology and time series trends of the dominant seasonal phytoplankton bloom across global scales

Climate change mitigation

61. Toward a global coal mining moratorium? A comparative analysis of coal mining policies in the USA, China, India and Australia

"We find that the norm of keeping coal in the ground remains essentially contested. Even in those countries that have introduced some form of a coal mining moratorium, the ban can easily be, or has already been, reversed. To the extent that the norm of keeping coal in the ground has momentum, it is primarily due to non-climate reasons: the Chinese moratorium was mostly an instance of industrial policy (aiming to protect Chinese coal companies and their workers from the overcapacity and low prices that are hitting the industry), while the USA’s lease restrictions were mainly motivated by concerns over fiscal justice."

62. Accounting for effects of carbon flows in LCA of biomass-based products—exploration and evaluation of a selection of existing methods

"We found that including the impact of land use and carbon cycles had a profound effect on the results for global warming impact potential. It changed the ranking among the different routes for PE production, sometimes making biomass-based PE worse than the fossil alternative."

63. An introduction to the special issue on the Benefits of Reduced Anthropogenic Climate changE (BRACE)

"Here, we provide a brief summary of the project design, expanding on its relation to the scenario literature, and an overview of the papers included in the issue. While we leave the discussion of results mainly to the synthesis paper, we extend it here to include some additional detail on the relationship between BRACE results and those from other avoided impact studies, and emphasize future research needs."

64. Analysis on energy demand and CO2 emissions in China following the Energy Production and Consumption Revolution Strategy and China Dream target

65. Analysis of the global carbon dioxide emissions from 2003 to 2015: convergence trends and regional contributions

66. As Bad as it Gets: How Climate Damage Functions Affect Growth and the Social Cost of Carbon

67. The value of knowledge accumulation on climate sensitivity uncertainty: comparison between perfect information, single stage and act then learn decisions

68. Perceptions of climate engineering in the South Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, and North American Arctic

69. Perceptions of climate change risk in The Bahamas

70.  How geoengineering scenarios frame assumptions and create expectations

71. Quantifying and comparing effects of climate engineering methods on the Earth system

72. The Signaling Effect of Emission Taxes Under International Duopoly

73. Current sources of carbon tetrachloride (CCl₄) in our atmosphere

74. Land restoration in food security programmes: synergies with climate change mitigation

Other papers

75. Near-surface permafrost aggradation in Northern Hemisphere peatlands shows regional and global trends during the past 6000 years

"Results indicate that permafrost was continuously present in peatlands during the last 6000 years in some present-day continuous permafrost zones and formed after 6000 BP in peatlands in the isolated to discontinuous permafrost regions. Rates of permafrost aggradation in peatlands generally increased after 3000 BP and were greatest between 750 and 0 BP, corresponding with neoglacial cooling and the Little Ice Age (LIA), respectively. Peak periods of permafrost thaw occurred after 250 BP, when permafrost aggradation in peatlands reached its maximum extent and as temperatures began warming after the LIA, suggesting that permafrost thaw is likely to continue in the future."

76. Climate variability in the subarctic area for the last 2 millennia

"A focus on the last 2 centuries shows a recent warming characterized by a well-marked warming trend parallel with increasing greenhouse gas emissions. It also shows a multidecadal variability likely due to natural processes acting on the internal climate system on a regional scale. A ∼ 16–30-year cycle is found in Alaska and seems to be linked to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, whereas ∼ 20–30- and ∼ 50–90-year periodicities characterize the North Atlantic climate variability, likely in relation with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. These regional features are probably linked to the sea ice cover fluctuations through ice–temperature positive feedback."

77. How will air quality change in South Asia by 2050?

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2nCj21j

Big Gas Mission; Small Team

A small Virginia-based Air Force unit is making sure pilots around the world can breathe easy.

from http://ift.tt/2ny1vIc

A small Virginia-based Air Force unit is making sure pilots around the world can breathe easy.

from http://ift.tt/2ny1vIc

Groundhog Day has roots in astronomy

Image via kidskonnect

Ah, Groundhog Day. On this Groundhog Day – February 2, 2018 – will Punxsutawney Phil – called the world’s most beloved seasonal prognosticator by his handlers in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania – see his shadow? If not, it means spring will come early this year … at least, according to folklore.

Groundhog Day, a U.S. and Canadian tradition, comes every year on February 2. It has its roots in astronomy, in the sense that it’s a seasonal festival, tied to the movement of Earth around the sun. It’s a great excuse to go outside and enjoy some revelry during the winter months. Follow the links below to learn more.

Punxsutawney Phil, the great weather prognosticator.

Groundhog Day has its roots in astronomy.

Groundhog Day in various cultures.

One final note.

… the great weather prognosticator. See Phil on the far left? Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Punxsutawney Phil, the great weather prognosticator. We all know the rules of Groundhog Day. On February 2, a groundhog is said to forecast weather by looking for his shadow. If it’s sunny out, and he sees it, we’re in for six more weeks of winter. On the other hand, a cloudy Groundhog Day is supposed to forecast an early spring.

Of course, it can’t be cloudy, or sunny, everywhere at once. And many towns in the U.S. and Canada have their own local groundhogs and local traditions for Groundhog Day.

But by far the most famous of the February 2 shadow-seeking groundhogs is Punxsutawney Phil in Punxsutawney, in western Pennsylvania, which calls itself:

… original home of the great weather prognosticator, His Majesty, the Punxsutawney Groundhog.

Since 1887, members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club have held public celebrations of Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney is where Bill Murray was in the movie Groundhog Day. From the looks of things … a good time is had by all.

How accurate is Phil? NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center says Phil’s forecasts have shown no predictive skill in recent years.

AccuWeather, on the the hand, says the groundhog is a better-than-average predictor, with an 80 percent accuracy rate.

The equinox is an event that takes place in Earth’s orbit around the sun.

Groundhog Day has its roots in astronomy. What you might not know is that Groundhog Day is really an astronomical holiday.

It’s an event that takes place in Earth’s orbit around the sun, as we move between the solstices and equinoxes. In other words, Groundhog Day falls more or less midway between the December solstice and the March equinox. Each cross-quarter day is actually a collection of dates, and various traditions celebrate various holidays at this time. February 2 is the year’s first cross-quarter day.

Of course, the division of the year into segments is common to many cultures. Our ancestors were more aware of the sun’s movements across the sky than we are, since their plantings and harvests depended on it.

Neo-pagan wheel of the year. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Groundhog Day in various cultures. In the ancient Celtic calendar, the year is also divided into quarter days (equinoxes and solstices) and cross-quarter days on a great neopagan wheel of the year. Thus, just as February 2 is marked by the celebration of Candlemas by some Christians, such as the Roman Catholics, in contemporary paganism, this day is called Imbolc and is considered a traditional time for initiations.

The celebration of Groundhog Day came to America along with immigrants from Great Britain and Germany. The tradition can be traced to early Christians in Europe, when a hedgehog was said to look for his shadow on Candlemas Day.

Try this old English rhyme:

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, winter will have another flight. But if it be dark with clouds and rain, winter is gone and will not come again.

Or here’s another old saying:

Half your wood and half your hay, you should have on Candlemas Day.

In Germany it used to be said:

A shepherd would rather see a wolf enter his stable on Candlemas Day than see the sun shine.

There, a badger was said to watch for his shadow.

A friend on Facebook said that, in Portugal, people have a poem about February 2 related to the Lady of Candles. Here’s the poem:

Quando a Senhora das Candeias está a rir está o inverno para vir, quando está a chorar está o inverno a acabar. [Translation: If she smiles (Sun) the winter is yet to come, if she cries (Rain) the winter is over]

Cloudy, one of the groundhogs at Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois. contemplates an exit from her wooden home on Groundhog Day. Photo via Tim Boyle/Newsmakers.

One final note. It’s supposed to be bad luck to leave your Christmas decorations up after Groundhog Day.

The National Geographic Society once studied the groundhog and found him right only one out of every three times. But what the heck? It’s all in good fun.

So whether you celebrate with a real groundhog and a real shadow – or just pause a moment on this day to reflect on the passing of the seasons.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Bottom line: Groundhog Day comes every year on February 2. It has its roots in astronomy, in the sense that it’s a seasonal festival,

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1o1Yu0E

Image via kidskonnect

Ah, Groundhog Day. On this Groundhog Day – February 2, 2018 – will Punxsutawney Phil – called the world’s most beloved seasonal prognosticator by his handlers in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania – see his shadow? If not, it means spring will come early this year … at least, according to folklore.

Groundhog Day, a U.S. and Canadian tradition, comes every year on February 2. It has its roots in astronomy, in the sense that it’s a seasonal festival, tied to the movement of Earth around the sun. It’s a great excuse to go outside and enjoy some revelry during the winter months. Follow the links below to learn more.

Punxsutawney Phil, the great weather prognosticator.

Groundhog Day has its roots in astronomy.

Groundhog Day in various cultures.

One final note.

… the great weather prognosticator. See Phil on the far left? Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Punxsutawney Phil, the great weather prognosticator. We all know the rules of Groundhog Day. On February 2, a groundhog is said to forecast weather by looking for his shadow. If it’s sunny out, and he sees it, we’re in for six more weeks of winter. On the other hand, a cloudy Groundhog Day is supposed to forecast an early spring.

Of course, it can’t be cloudy, or sunny, everywhere at once. And many towns in the U.S. and Canada have their own local groundhogs and local traditions for Groundhog Day.

But by far the most famous of the February 2 shadow-seeking groundhogs is Punxsutawney Phil in Punxsutawney, in western Pennsylvania, which calls itself:

… original home of the great weather prognosticator, His Majesty, the Punxsutawney Groundhog.

Since 1887, members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club have held public celebrations of Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney is where Bill Murray was in the movie Groundhog Day. From the looks of things … a good time is had by all.

How accurate is Phil? NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center says Phil’s forecasts have shown no predictive skill in recent years.

AccuWeather, on the the hand, says the groundhog is a better-than-average predictor, with an 80 percent accuracy rate.

The equinox is an event that takes place in Earth’s orbit around the sun.

Groundhog Day has its roots in astronomy. What you might not know is that Groundhog Day is really an astronomical holiday.

It’s an event that takes place in Earth’s orbit around the sun, as we move between the solstices and equinoxes. In other words, Groundhog Day falls more or less midway between the December solstice and the March equinox. Each cross-quarter day is actually a collection of dates, and various traditions celebrate various holidays at this time. February 2 is the year’s first cross-quarter day.

Of course, the division of the year into segments is common to many cultures. Our ancestors were more aware of the sun’s movements across the sky than we are, since their plantings and harvests depended on it.

Neo-pagan wheel of the year. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Groundhog Day in various cultures. In the ancient Celtic calendar, the year is also divided into quarter days (equinoxes and solstices) and cross-quarter days on a great neopagan wheel of the year. Thus, just as February 2 is marked by the celebration of Candlemas by some Christians, such as the Roman Catholics, in contemporary paganism, this day is called Imbolc and is considered a traditional time for initiations.

The celebration of Groundhog Day came to America along with immigrants from Great Britain and Germany. The tradition can be traced to early Christians in Europe, when a hedgehog was said to look for his shadow on Candlemas Day.

Try this old English rhyme:

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, winter will have another flight. But if it be dark with clouds and rain, winter is gone and will not come again.

Or here’s another old saying:

Half your wood and half your hay, you should have on Candlemas Day.

In Germany it used to be said:

A shepherd would rather see a wolf enter his stable on Candlemas Day than see the sun shine.

There, a badger was said to watch for his shadow.

A friend on Facebook said that, in Portugal, people have a poem about February 2 related to the Lady of Candles. Here’s the poem:

Quando a Senhora das Candeias está a rir está o inverno para vir, quando está a chorar está o inverno a acabar. [Translation: If she smiles (Sun) the winter is yet to come, if she cries (Rain) the winter is over]

Cloudy, one of the groundhogs at Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois. contemplates an exit from her wooden home on Groundhog Day. Photo via Tim Boyle/Newsmakers.

One final note. It’s supposed to be bad luck to leave your Christmas decorations up after Groundhog Day.

The National Geographic Society once studied the groundhog and found him right only one out of every three times. But what the heck? It’s all in good fun.

So whether you celebrate with a real groundhog and a real shadow – or just pause a moment on this day to reflect on the passing of the seasons.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Bottom line: Groundhog Day comes every year on February 2. It has its roots in astronomy, in the sense that it’s a seasonal festival,

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1o1Yu0E