I see Tony posted a couple of pictures from other planets (Mars and Mercury) in yesterday’s blog entry, and it reminded me of how long the rovers have been on Mars. It is hard to believe they landed way back in 2004 and Opportunity is still going strong (as Tony pointed out). Sadly, Spirit might be a goner. Mission controllers were hoping that Spirit, which has been stuck in sand for a couple of years, might “phone home” in the month of March. Since it did not make contact during March – the time of greatest solar insolation on Mars this year – it is unlikely that it will ever communicate. I suppose its last hurrah is to become a historical landmark someday when humans travel to and eventually colonize Mars.

In some other unfortunate news, because of the poor economy, and the fact that the government is running trillion dollar deficits, budget cuts at NASA might put on hold a possible robotic mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. A Mars astrobiology mission (searching for signs of life) has top priority so Europa will have to wait. As far as big expensive missions go, I suppose it makes sense to return to Mars a couple more times (the MSL and astrobiology mission) since NASA has had relatively good success with the red planet. Europa would be much more tricky. I blogged about some robotic testing in lake Mendota back in 2008. This research was conducted in preparation for a possible mission to Jupiter’s lively moon.

_________________________

Lastly, since it is the last day of the month, I need to bring up the old lion and lamb saying once again. We blogged about it earlier this month. Since this year we had lamb-like weather on the first of the month and lamb-like weather today – the last day of the month – it does not bring any credence that March “comes in” and “goes out” in opposite manners.

It looks like the “lion” weather is going to hold off until later Sunday and into Monday of next week. During this time a stronger storm system will bring a chance of heavier rain and snow to our area. It is too early to mention any numbers for accumulations, but a few inches is not out of the question.

Have a good Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Space

There are new studies coming out everyday in support and arguing against global warming.  It has been for several years and will continue to be a very controversial subject.  This article doesn’t necessarily focus directly on global warming but does give an interest to one way the earth maybe warming.

This article focuses on contrails, these are the condensation lines  that airplanes leave behind when they travel through the sky. A better explanation:  “Contrails form when the hot, moist plume of exhaust generated by an airplane’s engines mixes with cold air in the upper atmosphere. Liquid droplets form and then freeze, forming a straight, white line. Over the span of a few hours or more, the contrail loses its definition and becomes a cirrus cloud . But if the atmosphere is very moist, the line shape can exist for days.”

In this study it says that these contrails impact warming more than carbon dioxide and other green house gases.  However, they quickly rebut that contrail lines only last for a day or two at the most, where as gases linger for years in the air.

Here is an interesting fact, if there were no clouds contrail lines would cover 10% of the European sky and 6% of east coast of North America.

So how can these clouds affect the Earths temperature? There are two distinct ways.  The first is they reject solar light, this means they decrease the amount of heat and light that reach the Earth’s surface. They also trap long-wave radiation from the surface and keep it in the atmosphere instead of allowing it to escape into space. 

For more information check out the article.

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Climate Change, Nature, Science, Weather NEws, World Weather

With the skies clear for seven days in a row like they have been, it’s neat to look up into the heavens and wonder what it would be like to be on a different planet.  Luckily to crave our curiosity, at least a little bit, we can look at images gathered by some of NASA’s spacecraft.  Below is one example.  It’s the first image of Mercury taken from a spacecraft, captured on March 29.  You can read the blurb next to it from NASA.

At 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System’s innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down.

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Moving to another neighborhood, the Mars Rover is still busy as ever.  It was recently spotted on the southeast rim of Mar’s “Santa Maria” crater by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.   Check it out from this link.  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro20110309.html

Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Posted under Space

While discussing the secondary effects of fossil fuel usage yesterday, I mentioned some possible technological fixes for pollution and environmental problems. I monitor new developments closely because it is important to remind people that progress is occurring. Judging by all of the bad news lately (Drought in the Amazon, dwindling Arctic ice, less ozone, missing penguins, coral reefs dying ) you might be inclined to give up hope. Don’t. Even through all the turmoil, progress continues. Each new process, each new invention, each new tool represents the potential for a better tomorrow.

So how are things going lately? On the energy front, one thing that would help the transition from a liquid hydrocarbon economy to an electrified one would be better batteries. In that regard progress continues with researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, using nano-electrodes to produce faster charging batteries. One knock on electric vehicles is that they take a long time to charge. This advance could trim the time from hours to just minutes.

For electricity to charge up those batteries, how about a floating solar power array? India in cooperation with the Autralian company Sunengy will be giving the concept a go shortly. The main advantage to using floating solar panels is that you don’t need to find space on land (and pay rent/taxes – usually). Also, this particular solar concentrator design can be cooled by the water it floats upon and thus should be cheaper than land-based set-ups which need special cooling equipment. The first problem that cropped up in my head was stormy weather. How will this floating array hold up? The inventors say it can be lowered beneath the water during storms or high winds. That would work, but being in or near water tends to corrode mechanical and electrical devices. It will be interesting to see if this solar array desing can stand up to the elements.

Even land-based thermal solar plants might get an upgrade in the near future. They would be more efficient if they could operate at a higher temperature. Siemens is investigating the use of high temperature salts to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of trough-based thermal solar power plants.

Something I have been wondering about alternative energy for a while now is whether power companies will exploit the gas emitted from landfills to generate electricity. Well, wonder no more. Ameresco Inc. is developing a methane gas landfill power plant in California. It is just a pilot effort, but if it works, there are certainly a lot of landfills across the country that could be producing power.

Even the extraction of the oft-hated liquid hydrocarbons could be done more effciently with the help of solar power. Steam is needed for the extraction of heavy oil and using solar power to create the steam could save on cost. That is the hopes of Glass Point Solar. They are testing the method in Kern county, California.

These and many other hundreds of small advancements happen every day and will hopefully help create a cleaner and mor

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology

Tony brought up the topic of ocean acidification yesterday. It is a topic we have covered a few times in the blog and is something worth monitoring year after year. Even if some method – such as solar shading - is developed to keep the planet cool (while humans keep using fossil fuels) the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could still cause problems for marine life. No doubt the plants and animals will adapt to some degree but it would be beneficial to have some solutions in case they are needed.

Here is one engineering solution that could help, combining the effluent from natural gas power plants with limestone  and releasing the final mixture into the ocean. Not only would this process sequester carbon dioxide it could reduce the acidity of the ocean’s. Is it cost effective – almost certainly not, but then you have to factor in potential future problems as well. Is the threat great enough to justify the cost?

Similar to the situation with carbon dioxide in the air having a secondary effect in the ocean, airplane traffic also has some secondary effects. Climate scientists have quantified the amount of carbon dioxide coming from airplanes in order to help plan for the future should those emissions need to be curtailed, but what about the jet contrails? Contrails are nothing more than artificial cirrus clouds created by the exhaust of airplanes. Cirrus clouds tend to trap more heat (or radiation) than they reflect so they can keep the atmosphere warmer. The question is, how much do contrails contribute to warming the atmosphere? Researchers recently found that the effect from the contrails might be more than the effect from carbon dioxide emissions.

If it seems unrealistic that something as small as a jet contrail could change the temperature in the atmosphere, take a look at this visualization of daily flights across the U.S. The video is cool and amazing. It is phenomenal that all the air traffic can continue each day without many disruptions or accidents.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Oceans, Pollution

The oceans absorb a good deal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and many people look to see if we can even increase it’s role in sequestering carbon.  While that seems good on one hand in helping to stabilize the atmosphere, it’s very bad on another.  The ocean is becoming more acidic because of increased absorption of CO2.  In fact NOAA has measured a pH drop of .1pH units since the start of the Industrial Revolution.  Of course the lower you go on the pH scale, the more acidic something is.  A team of researches at NOAA predicts if carbon dioxide levels continue to rise at their present pace, the oceans could become 150% more acidic by the end of the century. 

A water molecule combines with carbon dioxide and a carbonate ion to form 2 bicarbonate ions.  This reduction in the single carbonate ions is causing havoc with sea animals that have shells such as oysters, clams, sea urchins,and corals.   Another way of saying it is, the c0nsumption of carbonate ions is impeding calcification.  This is affecting the whole sea food ecosystem and ultimately could affect the one billion people worldwide that rely on the ocean as a primary food source.

There are several organisms that are enjoying the extra carbon dioxide in the ocean, including algae and sea grasses.  You can read much more about carbon / ocean issues and the varied research that is underway from NOAA and other groups.  Go to, http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Ecology, Environment, Oceans, Science

A couple weeks ago I took another look at the potential of rising sea levels over coming decades and the problems it might pose because so many people live next to the coast. Even if consensus theoretical warming comes to pass, the ocean level might only rise a foot or two, but with so many expensive societal assests so close to the coast, it could be troublemsome.

Not only is there a potential for the sea level to rise, it seems the wind and waves over the ocean have increased over the last two decades. In a sense, it is only the wind measurement that matters as the root cause of increasing waves height since the waves are driven by the wind. Satellite data indicates that the biggest 1 percent of waves have increased from a height of 16 feet to around 19 feet. Refreshingly, the article reviewing this research did not include a foreboding mention of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), perhaps because it is a short study or perhaps because increasing wind is not easily linked to AGW. While it is true that a warmer atmosphere has more energy, it is the contrast in temperatures (warm vs. cold) across the globe that is the ultimate driver of winds. If the atmosphere warms uniformly, then the contrast in temperatures would not change and winds would not be expected to increase.

Something similar it true with precipitation production. The contrast in temperature from the lower levels of the atmosphere (near the ground) to the higher levels of the atmosphere is what drives a lot of cloud and storm production around the world. This provides a vexing problem for climatologists hoping to forecast what amount of precipitation will fall in future years. While warmer air holds more moisture, if the contrast in temperatures from bottom to top through the atmosphere goes down, then there will likely be less precipitation. If you have grown confused by all of the reports that say there will be more rain, or less rain, more droughts, or more floods, this is the root of the confusion.

So far it seems that the “more moisture in the atmosphere” side of the equation is winning out since last year was one of the wettest on record (subscription article). Even though last year was one of the wettest on record, ironically, there is still a lot of worry about drought. This recent research finds that cutting carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would increase precipitation around the globe and decrease the incidence of drought within a year. If last year was the wettest on record, I am unsure if we would want to increase the amount even more.

In addition, it is highly unlikely that we have such fine control over the atmosphere. There seems to be a bit a hubris in AGW discussions when talking about carbon dioxide levels – as if managing carbon levels was analogous to setting a thermostat. I doubt it is that simple. The earth’s climate has been through great extremes before humans arrived and even during recorded history. The Russian heat wave of 2010 might have been the strongest in 500 years, but it was triggered by known atmospheric processes. If those heat waves become more frequent, then a connection to AGW could be made.

Even the ARKstorm scenario for the west coast of the U.S., while likely to be exacerbated by a warmer world, is not without historical comparison. A major precipitation event struck California way back in 1861 and 1862 and caused the state to go bankrupt.

Have a pleasant Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Drought, Flooding, Heat

The Antartic Ocean’s temperatrues sits at 28.8 degrees.  But a a fishes blood freezes at 30.4 degrees. So how is this possible, wouldn’t this mean that the fish freeze? 

But some how they don’t, so how is this possible? This little fact has been a mystery for years for scientists.  This was until little until “special frost protection proteins were found in the blood of the cold-water fish.”

These proteins seem to work like anti freeze for your own car! ”These proteins work better than any household antifreeze at keeping the fish from becoming fish-cicles. How they work, however, has been unclear. “ 

So I guess the fish know how to adapt to the cold temps, much like we adapt to the cold I guess!

For more information you can check out the interesting article.

Meterologsit Kristen Connolly

Posted under Environment, Science, Weather NEws

At the time I write this I am sitting in a dark office, I can’t completely shut everything down but I am doing a little bit to participate in Earth Hour.  We are going to show this tonight on the news and I will post the video once it airs.  Earth Hour is an event where people around the world turn their lights off from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.  It starts in the far West and goes time zone by time zone.  So not everyone is at the same time but they do it when they hit 8:30, much like how we all celebrate New Years at Midnight!

The event is organized by the World Wildlife Fund to describe their mission” To stop the degradation of the Earth’s natural enviroment and build a future where people live in harmony with nature.”

For more info check out the organizations webiste.

Alright and on a different not you HAVE to check out this link.  I have never found a more interesting interactive website that teaches you about something we all know -TIME!  BBC put out this interactive tool with several videos and articles about the tale of time.  I went through several and found them all informative with plenty of water cooler information.  My favorite was the three different time zones meeting at the North pole- Russia, Norway and Finland all have a different time zone yet they all can play hockey games against eachother but the game is in the home persons timezone. How crazy is that? That one is called “Where Times Collide”. 

Another interesting fact in the International Space Station they have a sunrise or sunset every 40 minutes with 16 a day! They said if they looked outside they could get confused…I would say so.

You also have to check out Antartica…wow now that is a continent that must be confused! Click on it to understand. 

Enjoy the fun site! Have a good night! Meteorologsit Kristen Connolly

Posted under International Weather, Science, Space, Technology, Weather NEws, World Weather

Since Justin and Tony have blogged about this storm I thought I would give my thoughts.  I also had a terrifying story dealing with this storm, not near to the extent of  Tony ( that is intense!) but was none the less frightening.

The storm came in a little earlier and stronger to start off than expected.  I knew this storm was going to bring a mixed bag to the south of Wausau but I thought I would be able to beat it.  I had plans to go visit my family in Rochester, MN and even the day before it seemed that much of my route on Highway 21 would likely be rain, well it wasn’t. 

Starting off in Wausau I dealt with light snow which kept increasing in intensity down to Stevens Point.  Like Tony said, during the snow it was all about getting behind a truck that had big tracks.  I saw a few cars in the ditch at this point.  It was from then on it changed to sleet, to freezing rain, to snow, back to sleet and again freezing rain.  From Point to 21 I saw all sorts of cars in the ditches, in fact most were SUVs or trucks.  There was one real bad accident about halfway from Point to Highway 21.

The worst for me was I was so scarred to be driving because I could never tell if the roads were slick or just wet especially when it was freezing rain.  I consistently looked at trees and signs to see if the water was freezing on them.  I never passed one car no matter if they were going 20 or 50 mph.  I likely did the drive in the morning before the worst of it but I have to say that was the WORST driving  conditions I have ever experience.  A drive that normally takes 3 and half hours took me atleast 4 and half, I think I actually lost count of the hours.  My hands hurt and were red from how tight I gripped the wheel.

My happiest moment was when I hit Tomah.  I finally saw rain, just pure rain.  The last two hours were a breeze compared to the first ( what normally is) two hours. 

I am very happy I made it as I had a great time with my family but I have to admit winter can make for tricky choices to stay or go.  Had I known how horrible it was, I don’t know if I would have ventured out. 

It will be something I remember when I see a storm of this nature again.

Lots of sunshine this weekend but cold temps near 30. Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Severe Weather, Snow Totals, Weather History, Weather NEws, Weather Safety, Winter Weather