Atmospheric

COLUMBUS, OHIO -- After a full day in and out of airplanes and airports, there’s really nothing like stepping out of the terminal and taking your first breath of unfiltered, unconditioned, unpressurized air.  Sure, the curbside may be cluttered with exhaust fumes, and filled with the noise of honking taxi drivers, but it’s still undeniably fresh. Too bad that last Sunday, I took that breath in the state with the worst air pollution record in the country. In reality, my first taste of Ohio air was probably not detectably different from any other state.  But the back of my mind was…

The Integrated Surface Database http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/isd/index.php  is a joint project of the National Climatic Data Center, the Navy, and the Air Force, and is a combination of over 100 data sources http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/isosmtg/lott-isos-ncdc-isd.ppt . In the first blog on this data http://www.science20.com/virtual_worlds/blog/global_annual_daily_temperatures_19292010-81063I included a graph that starting in the early 80's has a -10F imbalance, where 10 degrees more heat is lost over night than we received during the previous day. It's easy to wonder how that…

While standing outside in the middle of a cold night tending my telescope, I started wondering about how much heat is getting radiated into space under clear skys, that increases in CO2 should be reducing that radiation, and whether or not it would be detectable in temperature records. I dug around on NOAA's data site looking for hourly data thinking I could get some rate of change data from say the 30's and compare that to current data. Unfortunately, that data isn't free. I did find I could download their Global Summary of Days data. Free is free, so what the heck. GSOD data consists…

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow so forests are a completely natural way to offset climate change - but rather than let them passively sit there, the amount of carbon dioxide they extract from the atmosphere could be boosted by 400 percent if wood was harvested and used in smaller buildings instead of the steel and concrete that require a lot more fossil fuels during manufacturing, producing carbon dioxide. A review from the University of Washington, Mid Sweden University and U.S. Forest Service  may not make militant treehuggers happy but they can hash that…

Came across this nice video that explains how the Northern light forms, made by Per Byhring and the physics department of the University of Oslo. In it, it is explained how solar storms trigger Northern (and Southern) lights, during daytime as well as nighttime.From the hydrogen atoms fusing deep inside the sun to the earth's magnetic fields, and everything in between, this video (with great graphics, by the way) explains it briefly, yet thoroughly. The Aurora Borealis from Per Byhring on Vimeo.

As airplanes fly through clouds, they can punch holes through those with supercooled water, or water that has remained in liquid form below its freezing point and researchers are now saying this phenomenon can lead to increased snowfall around the world's major airports.  The effect is similar to cloud seeding, which has been controversially used past to influence precipitation, but a new study in Science says that private and commercial flights have been drilling holes and canals through clouds all along, influencing the snow and rainfall below them. The cloud-seeding effects described…

The common refrain when climate science detractors point out the flaws in numerical models is that, if no one is sure of the accuracy, the risks are being exaggerated. It could be the opposite.   Numerical models could be giving us a false sense of security, a belief that we have plenty of time to fix pollution issues.    Writing in Nature Geoscience, Paul Valdes from the University of Bristol School of Geographical Sciences, discusses four examples of abrupt climate change 'tipping points' over the last 55.8 million years that have been reconstructed from palaeoclimate…

Writing at the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang blog,  Jason Samenow advocates an idea he recently saw pitched by atmospheric scientist Alan Betts, namely that science studies be accompanied by layperson explanations. Ordinarily, this would be done by the media - independents like Science 2.0 or mainstream media like Discover or Washington Post or whoever - but, at least in the eyes of the public, many mainstream journalists stopped being 'trusted guides' in the eyes of the public when it comes to atmospheric science years ago and are now instead seen by people as either…

You've heard or read the scenarios - rapidly escalating levels of CO2 could cause rapidly escalating temperatures, even as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit.    The problem is that they are just scenarios based on a growing, yet incomplete, understanding of how climate works. During some periods in the past, there has been 10 times the CO2 present today with little change in temperature.  At other times, temperatures have spiked rapidly but it had little to do with CO2. Rapid temperature swings can occur (and that will be bad) but speculating that the same could happen again as the…

Before discussing the conclusions of this paper released this week, I'll start with a pub-quiz style question. How much of Earth's atmosphere has not been made by living things? The answer is: less than 1%, which is mostly argon. The overwhelming majority is biogenic; the nitrogen is a product of denitrifying bacteria, the oxygen from plants, and the inconspicuous CO2 is produced by everything, but especially animals. So, would an alien astronomer look at a spectrum of Earth, see this cocktail of gases, and think, "Hmmm. Clearly this planet is harbouring life?" The chances are that they would…