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Ice Cores Yield Rich History of Climate Change

By Guest PostFebruary 4, 2011EnvironmentAntarctica, atmosphere, borehole, carbon dioxide, climate history, climate record, concentration of greenhouse gases, core, coring, earth, gases, human activity, ice, ice core, isotopic composition, julie palais, kendrick taylor, krypton, logging, russia, sample, temperature of the ocean, vostok station, wais, west antarctic ice sheet divide, xenon

*Research project completes drilling for the year, reaching two miles below West Antarctic Ice Sheet*

On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth’s climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core.

As part of the project, begun six years ago, the team, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been drilling deep into the ice at the WAIS Divide site and recovering and analyzing ice cores for clues about how changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have influenced the Earth’s climate over time. (more…)

NASA Satellite Tracks Menacing Australian Cyclone

By Guest PostFebruary 1, 20111 commentEnvironment, Science3d map, airs, anthony, aqua satellite, atmospheric infrared sounder, atmospheric temperature, australia, cairns, clouds, crippling floods, deep convective, earth, forecasters, heavy precipitation, infrared image, NASA, northeastern australia, queensland, saffir simpson scale, thunderstorm, tropical cyclone, water vapor, yasi

Fresh on the heels of a series of crippling floods that began in December 2010, and a small tropical cyclone, Anthony, this past weekend, the northeastern Australian state of Queensland is now bracing for what could become one of the largest tropical cyclones the state has ever seen.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite, built and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., captured this infrared image of Yasi on Jan. 31, 2011, at 6:29 a.m. PST (9:29 a.m. EST). The AIRS data create an accurate 3-D map of atmospheric temperature, water vapor and clouds, data that are useful to forecasters. The image shows the temperature of Yasi’s cloud tops or the surface of Earth in cloud-free regions. The coldest cloud-top temperatures appear in purple, indicating towering cold clouds and heavy precipitation. The infrared signal of AIRS does not penetrate through clouds. Where there are no clouds, AIRS reads the infrared signal from the surface of the ocean waters, revealing warmer temperatures in orange and red. (more…)

NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft

By Guest PostJanuary 23, 2011Scienceairborne telescopes, atmosphere, crater, earth, ed stone, icy rings, magnetic north, Miranda, mysterious seventh planet, NASA, neptune, saturn, south poles, Space, stars, suzanne dodd, uranian equator, uranus, voyager 2 spacecraft, voyager spacecraft

As NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft made the only close approach to date of our mysterious seventh planet Uranus 25 years ago, Project Scientist Ed Stone and the Voyager team gathered at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to pore over the data coming in.

Images of the small, icy Uranus moon Miranda were particularly surprising. Since small moons tend to cool and freeze over rapidly after their formation, scientists had expected a boring, ancient surface, pockmarked by crater-upon-weathered-crater. Instead they saw grooved terrain with linear valleys and ridges cutting through the older terrain and sometimes coming together in chevron shapes. They also saw dramatic fault scarps, or cliffs. All of this indicated that periods of tectonic and thermal activity had rocked Miranda’s surface in the past. (more…)

War, Plague No Match for Deforestation in Driving CO2 Buildup

By Guest PostJanuary 22, 2011Environmentagriculture, Antarctica, atmosphere, black death, black death in europe, burning of coal and oil, carbon dioxide, China, conquest of the americas, deforestation, demand for gasoline, earth, Environment, fall of the ming dynasty, forests, genghis khan, global carbon budget, global carbon cycle, greenland, human impact on climate, industrial era, julia pongratz, ken caldeira, mongol hordes, mongol invasions in asia, vegetation cover

Stanford, CA — Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the global carbon cycle as big as today’s annual demand for gasoline. The Black Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip in the global carbon budget. Dwarfing both of these events, however, has been the historical trend towards increasing deforestation, which over centuries has released vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as crop and pasture lands expanded to feed growing human populations. Even Genghis Kahn couldn’t stop it for long. (more…)

Improved Measurements of Sun to Advance Understanding of Climate Change

By Guest PostJanuary 17, 2011Environment, Scienceamount of energy, anthropogenic causes of climate change, calibration facility, climate change, climate respond, earth, global temperature, global warming, greg kopp, industrial revolution, judith lean, laboratory, NASA, optical design, planet, satellite data, solar fluctuations, solar irradiance, solar radiation and climate experiment spacecraft, sorce, spacecraft easurements, sun, tim, total irradiance monitor, total solar irradiance, tsi, tsi value

WASHINGTON — Scientists have taken a major step toward accurately determining the amount of energy that the sun provides to Earth, and how variations in that energy may contribute to climate change.

In a new study of laboratory and satellite data, researchers report a lower value of that energy, known as total solar irradiance, than previously measured and demonstrate that the satellite instrument that made the measurement—which has a new optical design and was calibrated in a new way—has significantly improved the accuracy and consistency of such measurements. (more…)

Spacecraft Catches Thunderstorms Hurling Antimatter into Space

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2011Scienceantimatter, antimatter particles, beams, earth, egypt, electric fields, energy, fermi gamma ray space telescope, fermi spacecraft, gamma ray, joseph dwyer, light, michael briggs, NASA, phenomenon, scientists, seattle, spacecraft, steven cummer, storm, terrestrial gamma ray flash, tgf, thunderstorms, zambia

WASHINGTON — Scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before.

Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 such flashes occur daily worldwide, but most go undetected. (more…)

Three Giant Spaceships to Attack Earth in 2012?

By PravdaDecember 23, 2010Science Fictionalaska, aliens, americans, ancient ruins, armstrong and aldrin, carcass, civilizations, earth, extraterrestrial spaceships, haard search system, human footprints, ken johnston, lunar surface, mayan calendar, moon, optical telescopes, orbit, phenomenon, pluto, search for extraterrestrial intelligence, seti, spaceships, three giant spaceships, time science, ufo, ufo sightings

UFO encounters became especially frequent in the middle of the 20th century, when it became impossible to disregard incidents of UFO sightings anymore. Special services started establishing special departments for air defense troops, secret laboratories were organized to study the phenomenon. It is not ruled out, that secret services have already had chances to study fragments of alien spaceships or even aliens themselves.

It is about time science should say its word regarding the problem, and it did. SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), an independent non-commercial organization, released a sensational statement. (more…)

Citizen Scientists Join Search for Earth-like Planets

By Guest PostDecember 19, 2010Scienceastronomers, citizen science project, constellation, cygnus, debra fischer, dimming of light, earth, earth like planets, exoplanets, galaxy zoo, galaxy zoo project, global network, globe, human computing power, jupiter, kepler mission, kevin schawinski, large gas giants, meg schwamb, NASA, planet candidates, planet hunters, solar system, space telescope, sun, web users, yale astronomer, zooniverse

Web users around the globe will be able to help professional astronomers in their search for Earth-like planets thanks to a new online citizen science project called Planet Hunters that launched Dec. 16. at www.planethunters.org.

Planet Hunters, which is the latest in the Zooniverse citizen science project collection, will ask users to help analyze data taken by NASA’s Kepler mission. The space telescope has been searching for planets beyond our own solar system—called exoplanets—since its launch in March 2009. (more…)

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