Atmospheric

All eyes are on where hurricanes make landfall, but the massive storms actually cause the most deaths inland, where severe flooding often surprises residents. Now, researchers are learning how to predict where tropical storms and hurricanes will dump the most rain — even days after — and hundreds of miles away from — landfall. Corene Matyas, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Florida, outlines new tools to predict how the storm’s intensity, distance it has moved inland and landscape topography alters its “rain shields” — the bands of heavy rain so visible in Doppler…

Climate models are reliable tools that help researchers better understand the observed record of ocean warming and variability. That's the finding of a group of Livermore scientists, who in collaboration with colleagues at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, had earlier established that climate models can replicate the ocean warming observed during the latter half of the 20th century, and that most of this recent warming is caused by human activities. The observational record also shows substantial variability in ocean heat content on interannual-to-decadal time scales. The new research by…

Think you know how to solve global warming? You'll soon get a chance to find out. A new Web-enhanced version of the most commonly used climate modeling system will allow scientists, students or anyone else to test their theories about the planet's climate. The Community Climate System Model is already used by thousands of scientists, and the results from their models often make headlines around the world. The new climate modeling TeraGrid service tool was announced Wednesday (June 6) at the annual meeting of TeraGrid users in Madison, Wis. "This new tool makes climate modeling available to…

Weather models are not good at predicting rain. Particularly in hilly terrain, this can lead to great damage arising from late warnings of floods, or even none at all. From June 1 to September 1, 2007 Delft University of Technology is participating in a major international experiment in Germany’s Black Forest, to learn more about what causes rain. Aircraft and an airship are to be used alongside ground-based observatories and satellites. TARA at its homebase in Cabauw, Holland. Credit: TU Delft The creation of rain is the result of a variety of physical processes. These processes influence…

Scientists at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Italy have discovered particles of cocaine and marijuana in the air around Rome, they revealed today. Rome's atmosphere contained 0.1 nanograms per cubic meter of cocaine at its height during their analysis. Not a substantial impact but still a cause for concern. This was in addition to benzopyrene C20H12 and other types of emissions. "These suspended particles, better known by the term PM10 or `thin powders'”, explains the director of the Institute for Atmospheric Pollution Dr. Ivo Allegrini, "are a concern for public health. It is…

NASA and Columbia University Earth Institute research finds that human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth’s climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet. From a combination of climate models, satellite data, and paleoclimate records the scientists conclude that the West Antarctic ice sheet, Arctic ice cover, and regions providing fresh water sources and species habitat are under threat from continued global warming. Tipping points can occur during climate change when the climate reaches a state such that strong amplifying…

The frequency of intense hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean appears to be closely connected to long-term trends in the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the West African monsoon, according to new research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Geologists Jeff Donnelly and Jonathan Woodruff made that discovery while assembling the longest-ever record of hurricane strikes in the Atlantic basin. Donnelly and Woodruff began reconstructing the history of land-falling hurricanes in the Caribbean in 2003 by gathering sediment-core samples from Laguna Playa Grande on Vieques (…

Forecasters will test a new technique this summer that provides a detailed 3-D view of an approaching hurricane every six minutes and allows them to determine whether the storm is gathering strength as it nears land. The technique, developed by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), relies on the existing network of Doppler radars along the Southeast coast to closely monitor hurricane winds. This map shows the locations of NOAA Doppler radars along the East and Gulf coasts. With the new technique known as VORTRAC,…

In the eye of a furious hurricane, the weather is often quite calm and sunny. But new NASA research is providing clues about how the seemingly subtle movement of air within and around this region provides energy to keep this central "powerhouse" functioning. Using computer simulations and observations of 1998's Hurricane Bonnie in southern North Carolina, scientists were able to get a detailed view of pockets of swirling, warm humid air moving from the eye of the storm to the ring of strong thunderstorms in the eyewall that contributed to the intensification of the hurricane. The findings…

To download the 8 meter X 4 meter 900M resolution poster it is ony available through BitTorrent, the size is 3.89 GB and it can be downloaded here. Smaller resolutions below. The most detailed portraits ever of the Earth's land surface have been created with ESA's Envisat environmental satellite. The portraits are the first products produced as part of the ESA-initiated GlobCover project and are available online. Bimonthly global composites for May to June 2005 and March to April 2006 can be accessed through a newly developed map server tool on ESA’s GlobCover website. On 19 June, additional…