Stories tagged The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate
People from all walks of life are fascinated by weather and make routine measurements. The “Cooperative Network” operated by the National Weather Service (or NWS) is a network of several thousand volunteers from across the country that routinely make and report weather observations. This Coop has operated continuously since 1890. The group includes about 9,000 weather observes who systematically measure high and low temperatures, rainfall and snow accumulation every day. These observations are archived at the National Climatic Data Center and are a large part of the historical weather record of the country.
Another group, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow networks, or CoCoRaHS, includes 15,000 volunteers who help measure and report precipitation type and amounts every day. Observations of precipitation by a large group of volunteers are critical to understanding storms as precipitation varies widely from place to place even in a single storm. Such observations are useful for assessing flooding hazards and rapid snow melting. You can join CoCoRaHS at http://www.cocorahs.org.
There are also tens of thousands of citizens that serve as NWS severe weather spotters. The NWS relies on these storm spotters, along with radars, satellites and other data to supply observations that help in NWS’ decision making process of issuing and verifying severe weather warnings. The NWS is always looking for volunteers to help get the word out about severe storms. You can find out more about this group and sign up for classes and become a trained spotter at http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/?n=spotters. It is a good class to take as we approach severe weather season.
So, if you enjoy making weather observations, join one of these groups and be one of the nation's weather observers!
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Hotter and hotter: This daily temperature map from space shows hotter areas in red, cooler areas in blue. The past century has seen a growing amount of red across the globe.Courtesy NASA/JPLHere's another log to throw on the figurative global climate change fire: a new study shows that recent temperatures are significantly higher than most years since the last ice age some 11,000 years ago. And the trends show that by the end of this century, we'll likely set an all-time high.
Like me, you're probably wondering how researchers can know how cold or warm things were in that time span. Thermometer-measured temperature records only date back to the late 1800s. But temperature information can be gleaned from other datable sources, such as tree rings and isotope ratios in cave formations. Long-chain organic molecules in shells of sea-based microorganisms that settled at the bottom of oceans have also provided temperature clues.
Hockey stick graph: If you were to graph the global temperature data from the last 11,000 year, it would look much like a prone hockey stick, with temperatures of the last 100 years spiking up sharply.Courtesy OhkamiThe new study aggregated data taken from 73 different studies from across the globe to try to get a better handle on overall temperature trends. And that trend shows that in the past century, which started with some of the lowest global temperatures since the last ice age, we've spiked up in recent years to see some of the highest temperatures recorded in that 11,000-year span. Charting that data on a graph over all those years shows a long horizontal line of slight variations ending with a sharp incline over the last century, hence the hockey stick analogy.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is a partner with the University of Minnesota on its Islands in the Sun project, which is monitoring the urban heat island in the Twin Cities to find ways of lessening its effects through landscape design. More than half the global population now lives in cities and so there is urgent need to understand and mitigate urban heat islands, especially during heat waves when the risk of heat-related illness and mortality can increase dramatically.
Islands in the Sun temperature sensorCourtesy Courtesy Department of Soil, Water and Climate, University of Minnesota
Islands in the Sun is setting up temperature sensors throughout the Twin Cities Metro Area. This temperature network when completed will be one of the densest in the world. Would you like to be a part of this effort? Islands in the Sun is especially interested in volunteers willing to have a sensor installed on their property and who live in the following locations -- downtown Minneapolis, downtown Saint Paul, Saint Paul – east of Rice St, West Saint Paul, South Saint Paul, Mendota Heights, Inver Grove Heights, Eagan, Oakdale, Woodbury, Cottage Grove, northern Roseville, Arden Hills, and Plymouth.
Information about the sensor and its placement can be found here. If you are still interested after reviewing this information, then fill out and submit a volunteer form. Please note that your interest does not guarantee that a sensor will be installed because each site must meet certain criteria. If selected, a temperature sensor will be installed at a location on your property acceptable to you with the expectation that it will remain onsite collecting data for up to four years. A technician will visit the sensor every two to three months to download data.
Thanks for considering being a part of this ground-breaking research project.
Sandy seen from space: This satellite photo shows the enormity of Sandy as she slammed into the east coast of the United States.Courtesy NASAI'm always skeptical about storms that get a catchy nickname before they strike. The hype always seems to be more than the outcome. But Sandy (aka Frankenstorm) seems to be living up to her billing. After coming ashore the New Jersey/New York area early Monday evening, her path of destruction is wide and intense. As of noontime Tuesday, the fatality toll had risen to 33 people.
Here's a round up of news sources reporting the impact of this major storm.
Converging factors – A nice recap of the meteorological conditions that combined to make this storm so strong.
The pre-storm view from crew members aboard the International Space Station.
Slide show of photos from damage in the New York City area.
Slide show of photos of damage up and down the eastern seaboard.
Sandy vs. 'The Perfect Storm' – Minnesota-based meteorologist Paul Douglas offered this comparison between Sandy and the infamous "Perfect Storm" that struck in 1991:
In some ways, Sandy will be much like "The Perfect Storm" of 1991, when the remnants of Hurricane Grace interacted with a cold front that moved through the Northeast. As tropical system (strengthened by the warm ocean waters) merged with the cold front, it became more of an typical Mid-Latitude Cyclone (strengthened by the large temperature difference across the front). Interestingly, the center of the storm (minimum central pressure of 972mb) stayed off shore and caused massive damage (estimated to over 200 million dollars with 13 dead). This storm (hybrid Sandy) is expected to MAKE landfall; some models forecasting the central pressure down near 950mb, much lower than that of 1991. You can read more of his insights on Sandy here.
In Chicago today, big waves – Sandy's stretching into the midwest, picking up 20-foot waves on Lake Michigan in Chicago.
Expanded reporting of the final hours of the HMS Bounty – the replica of a historic tall ship which sank off the coast of North Carolina Monday.
Top 10 rejected storm names – and on a lighter note, Dave Letterman goes low-tech to share rejected names for this super storm.
A plankton bloom: Not the new bloom off of Canada, but this is what it looks like. The green stuff in the water is sucking up carbon dioxide and doing ... we don't know exactly what else yet.Courtesy NASAHave you ever wanted to change the world? Of course you have. Who hasn’t? Even JGordon, world renowned for being more or less satisfied with his immediate surroundings, keeps a list of Things I Will Change When I Am King.
Some sample items from the list:
31: No more cake pops. What a joke.
54: Round up the jerks, make them live on Jerk Island.
55: Make sure Jerk Island isn’t actually an awesome place to live.
70: Transform Lake Michigan into biggest ball pit. Cover dead fish with plastic balls.
115: More eyepatches.
262: Regulate burps.
I think you get the idea. As Tears for Fears almost said, everybody wants to change the world.
And we do change it. We change it in a huge way. Cumulatively, the tremendous force of the human race has drastically altered the face of the planet, from oceans to atmosphere. But a lot of that change is sort of accidental; we don’t mean to affect the acidity of the oceans or warm the atmosphere, but we like driving around, making things, using electricity, and all that, and the byproducts of these activities have global effects that we can’t always control.
The notion that we could control these effects is called geoengineering. So we’re accidentally causing global warming … what if we could engineer a global solution to actively cool the planet. We’re causing ocean acidification … what if we could chemically alter the oceans on purpose to balance it out? The trick would be to balance out the positive effects of geoengineering with the potential side effects … if we could even figure out what those side effects are.
Geoengineering is necessarily a really large-scale thing, so for the most part it’s been limited to theoretical projects. But it’s been pointed out that some geoengineering projects would be within the capabilities of not just international bodies or individual countries, but corporations or even wealthy individuals. The Science Museum of Minnesota even has an exhibit on just this possibility: What would you do if you had the wealth to literally change the world?
But there are rules against that sort of thing, and it’s potentially really, really dangerous. So no one would actually do it in the real world ever, right?
Wrong!
Apparently someone did do it. Back in July.
A guy named Russ George, in partnership with a First Nations village, is thought to have dumped about 100,000 kilograms of iron sulfate into the ocean off the Western Coast of Canada. Why iron sulfate? Because iron sulfate is an effective fertilizer for plankton, the microscopic plant-like things in the ocean. The idea is that if you could cause massive growth in plankton, the plankton would suck up a bunch of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere before dying and falling the ocean floor, taking the CO2 with it.
The first part of the plan seems to have worked: satellites have detected an artificial plankton bloom about 6,200 square miles large off the west coast of Canada (which is how the operation was discovered).
George was hoping to make money selling carbon credits gained from the CO2 captured by the plankton, and he convinced the First Nations group involved to put about a million dollars into the project, telling them that it was meant to help bolster the area’s salmon population.
The thing is, it’s really hard to say what dumping almost half a million pounds of iron sulfate into the ocean will do, besides capture some CO2. And, what’s more, it looks like it was illegal: conducted as it was, the operation violates the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity and the London convention on dumping wastes at sea. Whoops.
So does this spell the end for individually funded geoengineering projects? Or has George’s scheme just opened the door for similar operations?
And, more importantly, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are people like George taking big steps toward addressing human-caused global change? Or are they creating what I like to call “Pandora’s Frankenstein*”?
Weigh in in the comments, and let us know what you think!
(*My friend Pandora has a pet chinchilla named Frankenstein, and he is horrible. I can’t wait until that chinchilla dies.)
Prehistoric Antarctica shoreline: artist's conception of flora living during the Middle Miocene epoch.Courtesy NASA / JPL-Caltech / Dr. Philip Bart, LSURecent investigations into microfossils show that Antarctica hasn’t been quite the icebox scientists have imagined it to be over the past 34 million years. Pollen and leaf wax samples from Miocene-aged sediments indicate the continent has experienced some periods of warming since the beginning of the most recent glacial period. The core samples studied came from ocean sediments collected near Antarctica, and particulates found in the samples indicate more rain fell on the ice-covered continent during the Middle Miocene epoch (15.5 – 20 million years ago) than previously thought, enough rain to spur the growth of forests of small, stunted trees.
Paleoclimatologist and organic geochemist Sarah Feakins of the University of Southern California and her colleagues analyzed core samples taken from between 144 and 1,100 meters beneath the ocean floor – levels dating back to the Middle Miocene. Spikes of concentrated amounts of pollens and leaf wax appeared in two periods – one about 16.4 million years ago, and another about 15.7 million years ago. The warm periods were relatively short, each lasting less than 30,000 years.
In a previous study, palynologist Sophie Warny of Louisiana State University had first described the pollen and leaf wax spikes found in the core samples, and she and Feakins eventually teamed up for the recent study. The team determined the particle spikes didn’t arise from the leaf wax and pollen blowing in from elsewhere but rather came from two species of trees that once lined the shores of Antarctica. The two species, podocarp conifer and southern beech wouldn’t have grown very tall – maybe knee-high – and neither spreads their pollen over wide areas. Had the pollens blown in from elsewhere - say South America or New Zealand - there were would have been more species in the mix.
Using a mass spectrometer, Feakins and NASA researchers analyzed the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium atoms in the wax molecules which indicated the temperature at the Antarctica location during the two warm periods was about 7 degrees Celsius during the summer. Today, summer temperatures in the same region are about –4 °C. The average global temperature at the time was about 3 °C higher than it is today. As the overall global temperature changes a relatively greater change in polar temperature isn't unexpected due to a process called polar amplification.
The data from Feakins and Warny’s study, which appeared in Nature Geoscience, adds to growing concerns over the sensitivity of Earth’s climatic and hydrological systems. At the moment, no trees line the shores of Antarctica, but current levels of carbon dioxide (393 parts per million) are not far off those thought to have existed during the Middle Miocene’s warm periods (400-600 parts per million) when forests did exist on the margins of the icy continent. This could indicate that even small changes in carbon dioxide levels can are capable of creating big changes in climate.
SOURCES
Earth magazine
Science on NBCnews.com
Mississippi River: Water levels in 2012 have dropped to record lows after a season of extreme flooding in 2011.Courtesy Mark RyanWhat a difference a year can make. The water levels of the Mississippi River this year are at their lowest on record, yet just last year, in the spring of 2011, extreme flooding of Ol’ Muddy was a source of deep concern for those living along its eroding banks.
NASA’s Earth Observatory page shows the striking difference in the river’s appearance near Memphis using two Landsat satellite images taken a year apart. One photograph shows the river in August of 2011 just after the river returned to its pre-flood levels. But if you compare it to a more recent image, its obvious that water levels have gone the opposite direction from flooding. The site conveniently allows you to combine the two views into a single image with a scroll bar you can manipulate back and forth over to see “then and now” differences (just click on the "View Image Comparison" button below the photos).
The lower levels of 2012 have allowed the US Army Corp of Engineers to patch and reinforce some of the levees built along the river to hold back flood waters, but tons of sediment from last year’s floods have reshaped river traffic corridors, reducing barge holding capacities and adding additional shipping costs.
An opinion piece in the Sunday, August 12, 2012 New York Times by three scientists (listed at the end) deserves repeating. Here are some excerpts:
Until recently, many scientists spoke of climate change mainly as a “threat,” sometime in the future. But it is increasingly clear that we already live in the era of human-induced climate change, with a growing frequency of weather and climate extremes like heat waves, droughts, floods and fires.
In terms of severity and geographic extent, the 2000-4 drought in the West exceeded such legendary events as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. More seriously still, long-term climate records from tree-ring chronologies show that this drought was the most severe event of its kind in the western United States in the past 800 years.
Most frightening is that this extreme event could become the new normal: climate models point to a warmer planet, largely because of greenhouse gas emissions. Planetary warming, in turn, is expected to create drier conditions across western North America, because of the way global-wind and atmospheric-pressure patterns shift in response.
The current drought plaguing the country is worryingly consistent with these expectations. Although we do not attribute any single event to global warming, the severity of both the turn-of-the-century drought and the current one is consistent with simulations accounting for warming from increased greenhouse gases.
And yet that may be only the beginning, a fact that should force us to confront the likelihood of new and painful challenges. A megadrought would present a major risk to water resources in the American West, which are distributed through a complex series of local, state and regional water-sharing agreements and laws. Virtually every drop of water flowing in the American West is legally claimed, sometimes by several users, and the demand is expected to increase as the population grows.
There is still time to prevent the worst; the risk of a multidecade megadrought in the American West can be reduced if we reduce fossil-fuel emissions. But there can be little doubt that what was once thought to be a future threat is suddenly, catastrophically upon us.
(Christopher R. Schwalm is a research assistant professor of earth sciences at Northern Arizona University. Christopher A. Williams is an assistant professor of geography at Clark University. Kevin Schaefer is a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center)
US Drought as of August 7, 2012Courtesy Mark Svoboda, National Drought Mitigation Center.
43 percent melt: This NASA satellite image from July 8 shows 43 percent of the Greenland ice sheet was melting.Courtesy NASAJohnny Carson used to have a standard round of jokes for the summertime on his Tonight Show.
"How hot is it outside today? It's so hot (insert punchline)," was the standard humorous convention he would use.
NASA researchers have a new take on how hot it is this summer, and it's not that funny. Satellite photos taken this month over Greenland show that the massive ice sheet that covers almost all of the Arctic region island was now melting at some degree earlier this month. Like the tried-and-true diet ads in the back of magazines, NASA has before and after satellite images that show the extent of melting that happened.
The top image, complied from three satellite photos taken on July 8, show about 40 percent of the ice sheet's surface was melting. Areas that are pink show where melting is occurring. Areas that are white show non-melting ice and areas that are grey have no ice cover.
97 percent melt: This satellite image from July 12 shows the melt rate surging up to 97 percent.Courtesy NASAThe bottom image, taken on July 12, shows a rapid acceleration of melting on the island, with 97 percent of the ice sheet melting. It's a surge in melting rates that scientists figure happens about once every 150 years. This month's data is the highest melting rate that NASA has seen in Greenland since satellite data has been collected for about 30 years.
A rare warm front stalling over Greenland is the cause of the high amount of melting and by the middle of the month, that front had moved on and things were getting back to normal. You can read the NASA press release about this weather event here.
While the brief massive melting is unusual, it's not a huge immediate threat to Greenland's ice sheet, which is some spots is more than two miles thick.
In other recent Greenland ice sheet news, a huge chunk of coastal ice broke off and is now adrift in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month. Measuring 59 square miles, the ice sheet is twice the size of Manhattan. You can read more about that story here. Two years ago, an iceberg twice as big as this year's broke off from the same location. Experts say it's extremely rare to have two huge icebergs break loose in such a short amount of time.
Bone dry: Significant sections of the country are facing drought just weeks after the major weather stories were about heavy rains and flooding. What's going on?Courtesy Tomas CastelazoIt was just a few weeks ago we posted incredible pictures and video of devastating floods ripping through Duluth. Now, on a national scale, the weather story is drought. But how bad is it really?
Depends on where you live, but much of the Midwest is falling into drought conditions. It's bad, but not as wide spread as the peak of U.S. drought conditions from 1934. USA Today has an interesting toggle map that allows you compare today's conditions with that record drought.
Even earlier this summer, heavy rains in the Twin Cities had lockmasters along the Mississippi River shutting their gates to control fast-flowing river water. Now downstream, the Mississippi is approaching record-level lows. In some areas around Memphis, the river level has fallen 55 feet from highs set last summer. This CNN website report has interesting satellite images of the newly slimmed Mississippi compared to last year's look.
What do you think of this crazy weather? Share your thoughts here with other Buzz readers.
