Latest Atmospheric sciences Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The latest sign that the change of seasons has started a cascade of radical changes in the atmosphere on Titan is an ice cloud taking shape over the south pole. This type of cloud, made from unknown ice, has long hung over the north pole. According to observations by the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft, the northern cloud is now fading. "We associate this particular kind of ice cloud with winter...
Daily weather forecast and wrap-up provided by redOrbit meteorologist Joshua Kelly. redOrbit Meteorologist Joshua Kelly Big Story Weather from April 11: Yesterday was another busy day with severe weather along the Gulf Coast, with tornadoes reported in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. A tragic tornado hit a town in the northeast part of Mississippi with one fatality. Large hail fell through a good portion of Georgia, while wind damage was spread from the Gulf Coast into the...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A group of researchers from Florida Institute of Technology's Department of Physics and Space Science recently asked the somewhat unusual question: "What are the radiation doses to airplane passengers from the intense bursts of gamma-rays that originate from thunderclouds?" Faculty members Joseph Dwyer, Ningyu Liu and Hamid Rassoul discussed the question and their answers concerning terrestrial gamma ray flashes at a press conference...
Daily weather forecast and wrap-up provided by redOrbit meteorologist Joshua Kelly. redOrbit Meteorologist Joshua Kelly Big Story Weather from April 10: Another busy day across the middle of the United States with this large and powerful low pressure system moving across the region. The winter weather included snowfall amounts around 8-12 inches through Eastern South Dakota and also 3-5 inches for Minnesota. Parts of Texas and Oklahoma also saw ice and some minor accumulation....
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online It is said that no two snowflakes are alike and new research from the University of Utah shows just how unique the cold-weather precipitation can be. Using a high-speed camera system, the researchers were able to capture images of individual snowflakes and determine how fast they were falling to the ground. "For forecasting the weather, fall speed is the thing that matters," Tim Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric...
Daily weather forecast and wrap-up provided by redOrbit meteorologist Joshua Kelly. redOrbit Meteorologist Joshua Kelly Big Story Weather from April 9: Yesterday was a very active day with our storm in the Plains. We had hail falling with snow at the same time from thundersnow across parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and with Nebraska. We actually at one time had a winter storm warning and tornado warning for the same county in Nebraska. A few snowfall totals so far. One comes from...
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online “… And as a reminder, the captain recommends that you keep your seatbelt fastened while seated throughout the flight.” The above was once regarded as overly cautious advice. However, new research from the University of Reading indicates that keeping your seatbelt fastened may become a strict and necessary requirement for those crossing the Atlantic in the coming decades. Their analysis of climate change has presented models...
Daily weather forecast and wrap-up provided by redOrbit meteorologist Joshua Kelly. redOrbit Meteorologist Joshua Kelly Big Story Weather from April 8: The big news from yesterday was the arrival of the monster snow storm in the Rockies and Northern Plains as places already started measuring snowfall in the feet through the Rockies. This will continue today along with some severe weather that setup from Nebraska to Texas. Big Story Weather Discussion for April 9: Low...
Part 3 of redOrbit’s exclusive 6-part series Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In the last installment of this series, we took a close-up look at the technology behind Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN). In part 3, we will look at the rate of false alarms put out by the ENTLN and compare those to the warning system utilized by the National Weather Service (NWS). We will also look at an anecdotal situation where Robert Marshall, CEO of Earth Networks,...
Daily weather forecast and wrap-up provided by redOrbit meteorologist Joshua Kelly. redOrbit Meteorologist Joshua Kelly Big Story Weather from April 5-7: A very large spring time storm started to take shape over the Rockies this past weekend bringing very heavy snowfall to the Rockies and also the start of some severe weather over the Southern Plains. Big Story Weather Discussion for April 8: High pressure over Canada will bring partly cloudy skies to the majority of the...
Latest Atmospheric sciences Reference Libraries
An urban heat island (UHI) is a metropolitan area that is drastically warmer than its surrounding rural areas because of human activities. The phenomenon was first looked into and described by Luke Howard during the 1810s, although he wasn’t the one to name the phenomenon. The difference in temperature is normally bigger at night as opposed to during the day, and it most obvious when winds are weak. Seasonally, UHI is seen during the summer and the winter. The key cause of the urban heat...
Desertification is a form of land degradation in which a comparatively dry land area becomes more and more arid, normally losing its bodies of water along with its wildlife and vegetation. This is a result of a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities. Desertification is an important global, ecological, and environmental issue. There is substantial controversy over the proper definition of the term “desertification”. The most broadly accepted of these is that of...
Climate change is a substantial and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods of time ranging from decades to millions of years. It might be a change in the average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions. Climate change is a result of factors that include oceanic processes, biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received buy Earth, volcanic eruptions, and plate tectonics, and human induced alterations...
Surface Dew-points can play a huge role in weather forecasting. The first such role is that it helps determine the amount of moisture in the atmosphere for a given point. If we look at the current dew-point map above from January 28, 2013 we can note several things of interest. First, if we look at where the black circle is around the number 70, we can make note that this air right off the coast of Texas is at a dew point of 70F. The temperature outside must be above 70F, because the...
Air mass thunderstorms are found in marine time tropical air. In short they are also known as MT Thunderstorms. Air mass thunderstorms represent what is known as the common three stage thunderstorm development. This means that an air mass thunderstorm goes through the stages of Cumulus which is represented by the updrafts only being present; secondly it moves into the mature stage where it has both updrafts and downdrafts; finally it goes into the dissipating stage where you see only the...
