Clouds at night

Here's a little something that was new to me when I read it: Noctilucent Clouds.

What the heck are those? That's actually a pretty good question. They are clouds that develop during the summer months over the poles and are the highest elevation clouds that this world has. They develop in the mesosphere, a whole lot higher than most clouds develop. There isn't a lot known about them, other than they appear enhanced thanks to things like volcanic eruptions and shuttle launches. The Wikipedia entry for the phenomonon has some more info as well as some pretty pictures.

Who ordered sunspots?

A while back, I talked about the possibility of a new Little Ice Age thanks in large part to a lack of sunspot activity on the sun leading to less solar activity and therefore cooler temps back on Earth. Well, so much for that.

I'm no expert on helioseismology, but apparently some people are, because a group of scientists used that technique to study a jet stream through the interior of the sun. This jet stream is one of the sources of sunspot activity, according to the scientists. Once this jet stream reachs 22 degrees latitude, an uptick in sunspot activity is generated. Guess what? The jet stream is creeping closer. If everything works as expected, we'll see increased sunspot activity.

No wholly mammoths for you.

"Way too close?" Ya think?

Don't try this at home (warning: sound).

It it a nice shot of a huge freaking tornado and shows the kind of damage that can be done to a hopefully empty building. It also shows exactly why I don't storm chase. Because who would want to be that close to a huge freaking tornado? Not me, that's who.

AF447

I've been not posting about Air France 447 for a reason: because it's hard to say what actually caused the crash. I've ready a lot of articles about the tragic flight, and many of them cite weather as one possible cause. There is chance that we'll never know what exactly happened. But there is a still a chance that the weather was at least a factor. I've heard from multiple sources that storms were in the area at the time of the crash.

A recent article on CNN.com highlights not the specifics of AF447, but rather the general dangers of the region that the flight was traveling through. This region around the equator is called the Intertropical Convergence Zone, or ITCZ. This region near the equator is known for persistant thunderstorms. It is a ring of low pressure that wraps around the globe. This low pressure allows parcels of moist, unstable air to rise, forming thunderstorms. If you look at a global satellite picture, you will likely see these thunderstorms in a broken line through the tropics. This time of year, with more sunlight falling on the northern hemisphere, the ITCZ is to the north of the equator. During the northern hemisphere winter, it is located to south of the equator.

What can make this region dangerous to flying is the height that the storms reach. At their peak, thunderstorms cap off at the tropopause. This is the reason that anvil heads are prevalent for large storms. The rising, unstable air reaches the stable boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere and is stopped in its tracks. The clouds can't rise, so it stretches out in the direction that the upper level winds are blowing. This happens in the ITCZ as well, only the stable layer is much higher. The tops of these storms can reach up to 50,000 feet, higher than commerical planes can fly. As a result, if a pilot cannot avoid the thunderstorm and fly around it, they may need to fly through it. Within the storm, the plane will feeel a lot of turbulence because of rising and falling air within the thunderstorm, as well as the possibility of frequent lightning and hail. Weather radar equiped on all aircraft helps pilots avoid the worst of it. And better technology for everything from forecasting to the design of aircrafts mean that flights can fly through the ITCZ without issue.

Earth 2100

Do you need to stay up late tonight, but you're afraid that you might doze off? Have I got the (potential) remedy for you!

ABC is airing a special called Earth 2100, about the changes that humans are helping to make to the earth and where our world will stand if things don't change. It will deal with more than just climate change (something I'm big on, obviously), including things like resource depletion and population growth. You may have heard this before, but water is the next oil. Climate change and available water are completely and totally linked. As climate change causes weather patterns to shift, where the water falls as rain changes as well. As populations grow, more water is need. Desertification is a very big problem in many areas of the world. I haven't seen the show yet (I'll be recording it, just in case I can't watch it tonight), but it has all the potential to keep you anxiously awake all night. So, you're welcome, I suppose.

By the way, Bob Woodruff (host of "Earth 2100") was on the Daily Show June 1. Check out the interview here.

More old news

So I was just perusing around the interwebs today, looking at this and that and found an old article from February that I found somewhat interesting.

You have likely heard of that thing called globel warming. I may have even mentioned it a time or three. Well, one possible affect of it has been that the hottest day of the year now comes a couple days earlier. Some scientists did a statistical analysis on the temps and found that in the last 50 years or so, the hottest day of the year (typically July 21) is now occurring 1.7 days earlier.

Thinking about that now, I guess it's not a terribly big surprise. Sure temps are hotter, so you'd think that the statistically hottest day of the year would be hotter as well. However, as the article mentions, winter temps have been heating faster than summer. Because of this, there is fewer cold days lasting into the spring. There is less snow and ice keeping air temps colder. Temps will starting getting warmer because of this. I guess it's just another affect that people don't usually think about.