Climate and Hydrology

Fall 2018
Hurricane Sandy, 28 October 2012

6
Source: NOAA
2013
Source: PlaNYC 2013

8
 Climate and Hydrology
Monitoring Infrastructure
 Examples
• Weather stations
• USGS station
• NYC DEP
• NYS DEC
 Monitoring
• National Weather Service
https://www.weather.gov/

• USGS Stream Flow data

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt

• US National Drought data

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Dro
ught/
What Drives Weather and Climate
• Background: weather and climate

• General climatic features

• Temperature

• Precipitation

• Snowfall

• Floods, winds and storms

 Background

• Air moves over the Earth’s surface and through

the troposphere. Horizontal movement is
caused by air moving from areas of (cooler)
higher pressure to areas of (warmer) lower
pressure
• The greater pressure gradiant, the greater the
wind speed
• Vertical movement is related to buoyancy of
warm air or the tendency of hot air to rise
What drives weather and climate?
 Background

• Weather is the local lower atmosphere short-

term (hours or days) physical conditions
measured, inter alia, in temperature,
precipitation, humidity, wind speed and cloud
cover;

• Climate is a region’s average weather

conditions over a long time (years, decades and
centuries)
 What drives weather and climate?

Air circulation varies around the globe as the

atmosphere responds to temperature
gradients. These gradients are affected by
•uneven heating of the earth’s surface by
solar energy,
•seasonal changes in temperature and
precipitation
•the rotation of the earth on its axis
•the physical properties of air, water and
land
 What drives weather and climate?

• Uneven heating of the earth’s surface by solar

energy occurs as air is heated more at the
earth’s equator, where the sun’s rays strike
directly, than at the poles, where sunlight strikes
at a slanted angle and spreads out over a much
larger area. That is, the sun’s rays are more
vertical at the equator and more oblique at the
poles
• Hence tropical areas are hotter than polar zones
• This uneven heating helps to create “cells” of air
movements
 What drives weather and climate?

• Seasonal changes in temperature and

precipitation occurs due to the tilt in the earth’s
axis in respect to the sun’s rays.
 What drives weather and climate?

• The rotation of the earth on its axis deflects air

masses as the move. As a result, heated air
masses rising above the equator and moving
north and south to cooler areas are deflected to
the west (to the right) in the Northern
Hemisphere or east (to the left) in the Southern
Hemisphere. This is known as the Coriolis
effect. The direction of air movement in the
resulting atmosphere regions, called cells, set
up belts of prevailing winds
What drives weather and climate?
Anticyclonic Winds around High Pressure Center;
Cyclonic Winds around Low Pressure Center
 What drives weather and climate?

• The properties of air, water and land concerns

heat from the sun that evaporates ocean water
and transfers heat from the oceans to the
atmosphere, especially near the hot equator.
• This evaporation of water created cyclical
convection cells that circulate air, heat and
moisture both vertically and from place to place
in the troposphere
What drives weather and climate?
 What drives weather and climate?

• The earth’s air circulation patterns, prevailing

winds and mixture of continents and oceans
result in six giant convection cells – three north
of the equator and three south of the equator –
in which warm, moist air rises and cools, and the
cool, dry air sinks.
What drives weather and climate?
 What drives weather and climate?

• Three other important influences (apart

from air circulation) include ocean
currents, atmospheric gasses and
topography
 What drives climate?

• Ocean currents influence climate by distributing

heat from place to place and mixing and
distributing nutrients
• Oceans absorb heat from the air circulation
patterns, largely near the warm tropical areas.
This differential heating and the properties of
water at different temperatures (density) create
warm and cold ocean currents. Driven by winds
and the earth’s rotation, these currents help
redistribute heat
 What drives weather and climate?

• Small amounts of certain gases, including water

vapor, carbon dioxide and methane and nitrous
oxide also play a role in determining the earth's
average temperatures an thus its climates.
 What drives climate?

• These greenhouse gases allow mostly visible

light, some infrared radiation and ultraviolet
radiation from the sun to pass through the
troposphere. The earth’s surface absorbs much
of this solar energy and transforms it into longer
wavelength infrared radiation (heat), which is
then absorbed by the molecules of GHGs and
warms the air
 What drives weather and climate?

• Interactions between land and oceans and

disruptions of airflows of mountain and cities
affect local climates
• Heat is absorbed and released more slowly by
water than by land. This difference creates land
and sea breezes. As a result, the world’s ocean
and large lakes moderate the climate of nearby
lands
 What drives climate?

• Various topographic features of the earth’s

surface create local and regional climatic
conditions that differ from general climatic
conditions of a region. For example, mountains
interrupt the flow of prevailing surface winds and
the movement of storms. When moist air
blowing inland from an ocean reaches a
mountain range, it cools and expands as it rises
in altitude and moves of the feature. As it cools
it loses most of its moisture as rain and snow on
the windward slopes
Fig. 5-8, p. 105
 Climate helps create different communities

• Different climates support different communities

of organisms, especially vegetation
• The world can be divided into several major
biomes – large terrestrial regions characterized
by similar climate, soil, plants and animals,
regardless of where they are found
Fig. 5-9, p. 106
 Climate helps create different
communities
• Average precipitation and temperature (as well
as soil type) are the most important factors in
producing tropical, temperate or polar deserts,
grasslands and forest.
• These may act together over a period of 30 or
more years, determine the type of desert,
grassland, or forest biome in a particular area
Fig. 5-10, p. 107
General Characteristics of New
York Weather and Climate
General climatic features of New York State

• The planetary atmospheric circulation brings a

three major air masses to New York State.
• Masses of cold, dry air frequently arrive from the
northern interior of the continent.
• Prevailing winds from the south and southwest
transport warm, humid air, which has been
conditioned by the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent
subtropical waters.
• These two air masses provide the dominant
continental characteristics of the climate.
 General climatic features

• The third great air mass flows inland from the

North Atlantic Ocean ad produces cool, cloudy
and damp weather conditions.
• This maritime influence is important to the NYC
region
• Nearly all storm and frontal systems moving
eastward across the continent pass through or in
close proximity of New York State.
• Storm systems often move northward along the
Atlantic coast and have an important influence
on the weather and climate of Long Island and
the lower Hudson Valley.
 General climatic features

• Lengthy periods of either abnormally cold or

warm weather results from the movement of
great high pressure systems into and through
the eastern United States
• Cold winter temperatures prevail over New York
whenever Arctic air masses, under high
barometric pressure, flow southward from
central Canada or from Hudson Bay.
• High pressure systems often move just off the
Atlantic coast, become more or less stagnant for
several days, and then a persistent airflow from
the southwest or south affects the state. This
situation typically brings warm humid weather
 General climatic features

• During the summer local sea breezes moderate

the afternoon heat. On winter mornings, ocean
temperatures warm the land and reinforce the
effect of the city heat island. This makes
temperatures 10-20 degrees lower in the inland
suburbs than in the central city;
 General climatic features

• The city has four seasons, but they are

dominated by hot summers and cold
unpredictable winters;
• Spring is slow to start, as once the oceans cool,
they take time to heat up again. At the same
time, warmer ocean temperatures than those on
land help to prolong autumn;
 Temperature
• Temperature in the city can vary dramatically, although
the mean is 55 degrees;
• The hottest day recorded was on 9 July 1936, when
temperatures reached 106 degrees F. Unofficial
temperatures were 115 degrees F at Times Square in
the shade;
• The coldest day on record was on 9 February 1934,
when temperatures dropped to -15 degrees F.
• In the last 20 years we have established 4 (out of 12)
record monthly highs; February (75 F. degrees in
1985), March (86 degrees F in 1998), April (96
degrees F in 2002) and December (75 degrees in
1998);
• At the same time, we also (only) established one new
record low; August (50 degree F. in 1986)
 Precipitation

• Precipitation is moderate and distributed fairly

evenly throughout the year. Most of the rainfall
from May through October comes from
thunderstorms, usually of brief duration and
sometimes intense;
• Heavy rains of long duration are infrequent and
associated with tropical storms of the late
summer or early fall;
• For other months precipitation is more likely to
be associated with widespread storm areas, so
that day-long rain, snow or a mixture is more
common.
 Precipitation

• Monthly normal precipitation is between 3.15

and 4.69 inches. Spring has the highest
precipitation (13.34 inches) followed by Summer
(12.68 inches), Fall (12.44) and Winter (11.23
inches) providing an average annual
precipitation level of 49.69 inches;
• Recent monthly highs were recorded in March
(10.41 inches in 1980), April (8.26 inches in
1980), May (10.24 inches in 1989) and August
(12.36 inches in 1990);
• Recent monthly lows were recorded in January
(0.58 in 1981), July (0.44 in 1999) and August
(0.00 in 2002)
 Snowfall

• Snowfall in the city is erratic and unpredictable,

ranging from just a few inches to more than 5
feet in any given winter;
• Normally, New York City gets the most snow in
February-an average of 8.5 inches;
• Generally, we receive approximately 18.5 inches
of snow in the Winter and 3.6 inches in the
Spring providing the city with a total average
annual snowfall of 22.3 inches
 Hurricanes, storms and other events

• Because of the mountains to the west, New

York City is largely protected from many
major storms that track across the northern
US;
• The 578 miles of waterfront, however, expose
the city to storms from the Atlantic;
• Hurricanes start off of Africa’s coast and pick
up speed and energy over the warm waters
of the Atlantic Ocean’s tropical latitudes;
 Hurricanes, storms and other events

• Recent Hurricanes that either missed NY or

were on the way, but didn’t make it here:
Edouard (1996); Bob (1991); Gloria (1985),
Belle (1976); Agnes (1972), Donna (1960);
Diane (1955), Hazel (1954) and Carole (1954);

• The Hurricane of 1938 caused massive damage

and more than 600 fatalities throughout the
Northeast. It was the fourth deadliest hurricane
in US history.
Fig. 5-1, p. 100
 Hurricanes, storms and other events

Typical top view of a

Hurricane

Path of the 1938

Hurricane
 Alaska (NH) Brazil (SH)

Circulation around Low Pressure in

Southern (Clockwise) and
Northern (Counterclockwise)
Hemispheres
Post tropical cyclone Sandy
29-30 October,
2012

Winds – 80 mph
(130 km/h) with
gusts up to 105
mph (165 km/h),

Storm surge:
14+ ft

Fatalities: At
least 44vin NYC

Cost: $60+
Billion (total)
 Hurricanes, storms and other events

• Nor’easters come from the Atlantic, just of the

coast;
• These storms are the cause of most of NYC’s
winter storm events
• Every year about 30 Nor’easters pound NYC’s
shores, raising tides by up to 5 feet;
• Nor’easters were responsible for the Great
Blizzard of 1888, the snowstorm of 1978 and the
Blizzard of 1996
Hurricanes, storms and other events

The Empire State Building

is hit by lightning an
average of 23 times a
year.
 Conclusions

• The City’s climate is both predictable and

surprising. Precipitation and temperature
seem to be consistent throughout the year,
but influences from both inland and the
ocean give rise to extreme events;

• This give NYC a particularly interesting

climate