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A Better Way to ID Extreme Weather Events in Climate Models

By Guest PostDecember 11, 2011Environmentatmospheric river, berkeley lab, bill collins, cam5, category 5 hurricane, climate simulation, community atmospheric model, computer models, cray xe6 supercomputer, dan krotz, data, effects of climate change, floods, frequency of extreme weather events, global atmosphere models, global climate model, hawaiian islands, heavy precipitation, high resolution simulation, hopper, hurricane, large datasets, library of congress, michael wehner, models, North America, pacific coast, pattern detection algorithm, prabhat, satellite images, simulation, weather, weather phenomenon, wes bethel

*Berkeley Lab scientists help automate the search for hurricanes and other storms in huge datasets*

You’d think that spotting a category 5 hurricane would never be difficult. But when the hurricane is in a global climate model that spans several decades, it becomes a fleeting wisp among mountains of data.

That’s a problem. As scientists develop ever-more sophisticated computer models to predict the effects of climate change, one of the things they’ll look for are changes in the frequency of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and heavy precipitation. The more data generated by models, however, the more difficult it is to quantify these rare but potent events. (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…)

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A Better Way to ID Extreme Weather Events in Climate Models

NASA Satellite Tracks Menacing Australian Cyclone