Seeing how rain falls from top to bottom and how heavy the rain falls throughout parts of a tropical cyclone is very important to hurricane forecasters. NASA has sped up the process of getting this data within three hours, and making it appear in 3-D. The new process now gives information quickly enough for forecasters to use.
Scientists at NASA have developed a way to process radar data from NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mi
For the first time, NASA has the tools and expertise to understand the rate at which sea level is changing, some of the mechanisms that drive those changes and the effects that sea level change may have worldwide.
“It’s estimated that more than 100 million lives are potentially impacted by a one-meter increase in sea level,” said Dr. Waleed Abdalati, head of the Cryospheric Sciences Branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “When you consider this information,
For the first time, researchers have the tools and expertise to understand the rate at which sea level is changing and the mechanisms that drive that change.
Sea levels rise and fall as oceans warm and cool and as ice on land grows and shrinks. Other factors that contribute to sea level change are the amount of water stored in lakes and reservoirs and the rising and falling of land in coastal regions.
“From the Mississippi Delta to the Maldives Islands off the coast of Indi
The Gulf of Mexico, 130 miles south of Galveston, Texas — An international team of marine research scientists working for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) have found new evidence that links catastrophic sand avalanches in deep Gulf waters to rapid sea level changes. By analyzing downhole measurements and freshly retrieved sediment cores, IODP scientists are reconstructing the history of a basin formed approximately 20,000 years ago, when sea level fell so low that the Texas shor
Álvaro Corral, a physicist at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, has discovered that the structure of the recurrence time of earthquakes, which is the time interval between successive earthquakes, is similar to the spatial structure of physics systems when they change phase in the “critical points”. The research has been published in Physical Review Letters and shows that the time interval between successive earthquakes depends on the time that elapsed between previous earthquakes. Although
Mars is a rocky planet with an ancient volcanic past, but new findings show the planet is more complex and active than previously believed – at least in certain places. Finding those places, however, turns out to be trickier than just looking at landforms like river valleys or lakebeds or searching for specific minerals.
“Context is everything,” said Philip Christensen, Principal Investigator for the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) on Mars Global Surveyor and for the Therma
A burst of mesospheric cloud activity over Antarctica in January 2003 was caused by the exhaust plume of the space shuttle Columbia during its final flight, reports a team of scientists who studied satellite and ground-based data from three different experiments. The data also call into question the role these clouds may play in monitoring global climate change.
“Our analysis shows that the Columbia’s exhaust plume approached the South Pole three days after launch,” said M
Mobile atmospheric lab gathering climate data
Scientists sponsored by the Department of Energy are conducting a six-month atmospheric research campaign at the Point Reyes National Seashore, in Marin County, California. The experiment’s goal is to help researchers understand how aerosols –small particles such as soot, dust and smoke–influence the structure of marine stratus clouds, and how aerosols are associated with drizzle – the misty rain regularly produced by these types
New technique developed to visualize colliding rock bodies
A team of geophysicists at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed a new technique to visualize the colliding rock bodies beneath the Himalaya with unprecedented detail, answering a number of questions about the world’s highest mountains and providing a new tool for assessing earthquake hazards.
The study, “Imaging the Indian Subcontinent Beneath the Himalaya” appears in the June 30 issue of the j
Predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This finding from a new study adds evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles and may be an indication that climate change processes may have varying impacts on different areas of the globe.
“Most people have heard of climate change and how rising air temperatures are melting glaciers and sea ice
Wildfires in Alaska and Canada in 2004 emitted about as much carbon monoxide as did human-related activities in the continental United States during the same time period, according to new research by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The fires also increased atmospheric concentrations of ground-level ozone across much of the Northern Hemisphere.
The NCAR study, which indicates the extent to which wildfires contribute to atmospheric pollution, was publis
New ’cold crust’ model may help explain other Earth-shaping events
Geologists at Queen’s University have discovered that the time it takes for mountain ranges to form is millions of years shorter than previously thought. This controversial finding could have implications for our understanding of other geological processes that shaped the Earth, says Professor James Lee and postdoctoral fellow Alfredo Camacho of Queen’s Geological Sciences and Geological E
The thousands of oval lakes that dot Alaska’s North Slope are some of the fastest-growing lakes on the planet. Ranging in size from puddles to more than 15 miles in length, the lakes have expanded at rates up to 15 feet per year, year in and year out for thousands of years. The lakes are shaped like elongated eggs with the skinny ends pointing northwest.
How the lakes grow so fast, why they’re oriented in the same direction and what gives them their odd shape has puz
Global warming could result in northern Europe growing colder as the southern hemisphere gets hotter, according to new research led by the University of Edinburgh. A study, based on analysis of changing climate patterns at the end of the last ice age, confounds the widely-held view that global warming will be uniform across the world. It also suggests that ice age conditions could return to the northern hemisphere sooner than was previously thought.
The research, which claims that
NASA hurricane researchers are deploying to Costa Rica next month to investigate the birthplace of eastern Pacific tropical cyclones. They will be searching for clues that could lead to a greater understanding and better predictability of one of the world’s most significant weather events – the hurricane.
As scientists and coastal residents brace for another potentially challenging hurricane season, NASA is launching the Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) mission. T
El Niño and La Niña play with the populations of microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton. That’s what scientists have found using NASA satellite data and a computer model.
Phytoplankton are the base of the marine food chain, providing food for little sea animals called zooplankton, which in turn feed fish and other creatures. Any change in phytoplankton numbers alters the ocean food chain.
The computer model showed that during El Niño periods, warm waters fr
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