National Hurricane Center / Tropical Prediction Center. Data Requirements for the Design of Weather Indices (pdf) Rain or Snow, Now You Can See Weather in Google Earth. It’s the middle of summer, but for those of us who long for the return of cold winter weather and warm cups of cocoa, throw on your favorite poncho and check out the weather in Google Earth 5.2. The latest version projects images of rain and snow over the areas with those weather patterns as it’s actually happening! First enable the clouds layer, then zoom in to a particular location where it might be raining or snowing. I’m willing to bet London is a likely spot, even these days, or the Lone Star state (pictured below) which is in the midst of tropical storm season.
Currently, our precipitation data cover some areas in North America and Europe; you can see if it’s available in certain places by enabling the radar layer. This is a fun and useful tool for anyone planning to travel or who wants to check a specific area where a friend of relative might be visiting or living. Via Google Earth, I could see that the hurricane was entering Mexico and Texas. Climate Feedback: Medicanes? Kevin Trenberth A recent paper published by Gaertner et al. in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) (in press as of 12 July 2007) explores the possibility for tropical cyclones to occur in the Mediterranean area in the future with global warming. It has been featured in the Times. The paper correctly points out that tropical cyclones have recently ventured into some unusual places with Catarina on the east coast of Brazil in March 2004 and Vince making landfall in Spain in 2005.
Gaertner et al. use an ensemble of regional climate models to assess new locations of tropical cyclone occurrence. The regional model framework for this study is one limitation as it may not create the correct large-scale atmospheric circulation across the region. The authors are aware of the summer difficulties and so they choose September as the time for the simulations. All these questions remain. For further discussion of tropical cyclones and climate change, see my recent article in Scientific American here. NRL Tropical Cyclone Page. GuiWeather. AEW link to Atlantic hurricanes. RealClimate » Climate Science.