Another Hot Year!

This visualization illustrates Earth’s long-term warming trend, showing temperature changes from 1880 to 2015 as a rolling five-year average. Orange colors represent temperatures that are warmer than the 1951-80 baseline average, and blues represent temperatures cooler than the baseline. Credits: GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio

It turns out 2015 was the warmest year yet according to NASA and NOAA! It edged out 2014 (the last record holder) by 0.23° Fahrenheit (0.13° Celsius). This continues a warming trend over the last 35 years but with 15 of the warmest years happening since 2001. NASA used surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations located across the globe to create a global average surface temperature.

Since consistent records started being kept in 1880, the planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.8° Fahrenheit (1.0° Celsius). With temperatures rising due to carbon and other gas emissions it reinforces the need for change. With the recent Paris Climate Agreement hopefully the world can work work together to accomplish its aims of keeping global warming below 3.6° Fahrenheit (2.0° Celsius).


Source: NASA

Clouds are Accelerating Greenland's Melting

CALIPSO Satellite Path

CALIPSO Backscatter Data - Click for bigger image
The red line in the image is ~ ground level and corresponds with the purple line in the top image.

Greenland's ice sheet has been melting at alarming rates over the last few years and scientists are trying to piece together the story. One part that is becoming clear is the effects of clouds on the ice sheet. Recently published research in Nature Communications by an international team has shown that surface temperatures were three degrees Fahrenheit higher due to increased cloud cover over the Greenland Ice Sheet. Clouds act as blanket and hold heat longer in the atmosphere. You can see this effect at night when skies are overcast or clear. Overcast nights are warmer due to heat being trapped in by the clouds whereas clear nights are colder because heat escapes more easily. The effect in Greenland may be compounded because as more melting occurs, more moisture enters the atmosphere, and more clouds form.

This research was accomplished using ground measurements and NASA satellite data from CALIPSO and CloudSat. The images above are from CALIPSO which uses LiDAR, infrared, and visible imagers to measure cloud structure. CloudSat uses a radar system to profile cloud structure. For more information click on the source link below.

Source: Nature Communications
Images: CALIPSO

Constructive Interference

 

I took a walk today at work (I work at a public school district bus depot) and found some great examples of constructive interference. What is constructive interference you might ask? Well, it's responsible for all the colors you are seeing in the water from the pictures above. The water has oil in it which causes it to be iridescent. The oil in the water creates a thin film that is reflecting light not only once, but twice! Once on the top layer of the oil and once on the bottom layer of the oil.

When the two waves are in alignment, the amplitude increases creating constructive interference. As different wavelengths of light hit the oil, they cause varying levels of constructive interference which produces all the colors that we see. So next time you see this occur you can shout to world, "Aha! The beauty of constructive interference!"

Source: Philip Dennison's 2013 Environmental Optics Course Reader

Orbital ATK Antares Launch Explosion

NASA just released hi-def images of the Antares rocket explosion from last year in all its gritty glory. They posted them on Flickr so check it out!

Satellite Imagery

A sense of perspective is unavoidable from 22,000 miles out. Looking down at Earth from that distance — almost three times farther than the diameter of the planet itself — allows a view of the globe as a massive organic system, pulsing with continuous movement. Below, images from the Himawari-8 weather satellite's first official day paint a living portrait of the western Pacific, with Typhoons Chan-hom and Nangka spinning slowly westward. 

Source: New York Times

Mars Crater (Great background image!)

This new image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an impact crater about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter that appeared at some time between July 2010 and May 2012.

Space rocks hitting Mars excavate fresh craters at a pace of more than 200 per year, but few new Mars scars pack as much visual punch as one seen in a NASA image released today.

The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a crater about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter at the center of a radial burst painting the surface with a pattern of bright and dark tones.

The scar appeared at some time between imaging of this location by the orbiter’s Context Camera in July 2010 and again in May 2012. Based on apparent changes between those before-and-after images at lower resolution, researchers used HiRISE to acquire this new image on November 19, 2013. The impact that excavated this crater threw some material as far as 9.3 miles (15 kilometers).

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the Context Camera.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying Mars from orbit since 2006, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro.

Source: Guy Webster, Jet Propulsion Laboratory; NASA SciTechDaily

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Calbuco Thermal Infrared

I think this is one of the cooler images I've collected (even though it didn't get very many instagram likes). From April 27th Landsat 8 6-5-4 false color composite on the left and band 10 on the right. Band 10 is one of the Thermal Infrared bands, so the lighter areas show more heat and darker show less. Even smoke from a volcano gets relatively cool once in the atmosphere.

Pretty cool, right?