DaveMurray's Blog

THE DAY TO DAY LOOK:

THE LONG RANGE:

I WILL BE AWAY FROM THE OFFICE OVER THE NEXT 2 WEEKS..AND IN THAT TIME WE WILL SWING OVER TO OUR NEW WED SITE...WWW.FOX2NOW.COM...SO THE DISCO WILL GO AWAY FOR TWO WEEKS AND RETURN WHEN I RETURN. AS ALWAYS--ENJOY THE WEATHER.

IN CASE YOU MISSED MY WINTER FORECAST FOR THIS SEASON JUST FOLLOW THIS LINK:

*** Click Here To See My 2008-2009 Winter Weather Forecast.***

You know how I feel about models...you work hard and forecast...using the models for what they are to be used for guidence...knowing the dynamics and physics of each model and what is good and bad...but a model...is not a forecast. With that said...one of my fav model guidence tool is the European model...here are the 3-4-5-6- day tools to watch for you...Dave

ECMWF SL Pressure/500 mb Height Plot TYPE Norm Inv TIME 3 day 4 day 5 day 6 day 4 Panel

 STAR CHART INFO:  

THE COOL PIC OF THE DAY:

The Red Planet is Not a Dead Planet

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Jan. 15, 2009: Mars today is a world of cold and lonely deserts, apparently without life of any kind, at least on the surface. Indeed it looks like Mars has been cold and dry for billions of years, with an atmosphere so thin, any liquid water on the surface quickly boils away while the sun's ultraviolet radiation scorches the ground.

The situation sounds bleak, but research published today in Science Express reveals new hope for the Red Planet. The first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars indicates that Mars is still alive, in either a biologic or geologic sense, according to a team of NASA and university scientists.

"Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, so our discovery of substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars in 2003 indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas," says lead author Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "At northern mid-summer, methane is released at a rate comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara, Calif."

Right: An artist's concept of a possible geological source of Martian methane: subsurface water, carbon dioxide and the planet's internal heat combine to release the gas. [animation]

Methane -- four atoms of hydrogen bound to a carbon atom -- is the main component of natural gas on Earth. It is of interest to astrobiologists because much of Earth's methane come from living organisms digesting their nutrients. However, life is not required to produce the gas. Other purely geological processes, like oxidation of iron, also release methane. "Right now, we don't have enough information to tell if biology or geology -- or both -- is producing the methane on Mars," said Mumma. "But it does tell us that the planet is still alive, at least in a geologic sense. It's as if Mars is challenging us, saying, hey, find out what this means."

Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery If microscopic Martian life is producing the methane, it likely resides far below the surface, where it's still warm enough for liquid water to exist. Liquid water, as well as energy sources and a supply of carbon, are necessary for all known forms of life.

"On Earth, microorganisms thrive 2 to 3 kilometers (about 1.2 to 1.9 miles) beneath the Witwatersrand basin of South Africa, where natural radioactivity splits water molecules into molecular hydrogen (H₂) and oxygen (O). The organisms use the hydrogen for energy. It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon," says Mumma.

"Gases, like methane, accumulated in such underground zones might be released into the atmosphere if pores or fissures open during the warm seasons, connecting the deep zones to the atmosphere at crater walls or canyons," he says.

"Microbes that produced methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide were one of the earliest forms of life on Earth," notes Carl Pilcher, Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute which partially supported the research. "If life ever existed on Mars, it's reasonable to think that its metabolism might have involved making methane from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide."

Above: This graphic shows one way methane is destroyed in the Martian atmosphere: the molecules are rapidly broken apart by solar ultraviolet radiation. Because methane doesn't last long in the martian environment, any methane found there must be recently produced. [animation]

However, it is possible a geologic process produced the Martian methane, either now or eons ago. On Earth, the conversion of iron oxide (rust) into the serpentine group of minerals creates methane, and on Mars this process could proceed using water, carbon dioxide, and the planet's internal heat. Another possibility is vulcanism: Although there is no evidence of currently active Martian volcanoes, ancient methane trapped in ice "cages" called clathrates might now be released.

The team found methane in the atmosphere of Mars by carefully observing the planet over several Mars years (and all Martian seasons) using spectrometers attached to telescopes at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, run by the University of Hawaii, and the W. M. Keck telescope, both at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

"We observed and mapped multiple plumes of methane on Mars, one of which released about 19,000 metric tons of methane," says Geronimo Villanueva of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Villanueva is stationed at NASA Goddard and is co-author of the paper. "The plumes were emitted during the warmer seasons -- spring and summer -- perhaps because the permafrost blocking cracks and fissures vaporized, allowing methane to seep into the Martian air. Curiously, some plumes had water vapor while others did not," he says.

Above: Methane plumes found in Mars' atmosphere during the northern summer season. Credit: Trent Schindler/NASA [animation]

According to the team, the plumes were seen over areas that show evidence of ancient ground ice or flowing water. For example, plumes appeared over northern hemisphere regions such as east of Arabia Terra, the Nili Fossae region, and the south-east quadrant of Syrtis Major, an ancient volcano 1,200 kilometers (about 745 miles) across.

It will take future missions, like NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, to discover the origin of the Martian methane. One way to tell if life is the source of the gas is by measuring isotope ratios. Isotopes are heavier versions of an element; for example, deuterium is a heavier version of hydrogen. In molecules that contain hydrogen, like water and methane, the rare deuterium occasionally replaces a hydrogen atom. Since life prefers to use the lighter isotopes, if the methane has less deuterium than the water released with it on Mars, it's a sign that life is producing the methane.

Whatever future research reveals--biology or geology--one thing is already clear: Mars is not so dead, after all.

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Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Winter Wonder Rocket Movie

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Jan. 15, 2009: How can a rocket engine that generates scalding 5,000 degree steam and a whopping 13,000 lbs of thrust form delicate icicles at the rim of its nozzle?

It's cryogenic. NASA is using the Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine ("CECE" for short) to develop technologies for a next-generation lunar lander. CECE is fueled by a mixture of -297 F liquid oxygen and -423 F liquid hydrogen. The engine components are super-cooled to similar low temperatures--and that's where the icicles come from. As CECE burns its frigid fuels, hot steam and other gases are propelled out the nozzle. The steam is cooled by the cold nozzle, condensing and eventually freezing to form icicles around the rim.

Click on the image to launch a movie of CECE's surprising fire and ice:

Launch the movie!

Above: The Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine in action during a recent test. Image credit: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. [Larger image] [movie]

Using liquid hydrogen and oxygen in rockets will provide major advantages for landing astronauts on the moon. Hydrogen is very light but enables about 40 percent greater performance (force on the rocket per pound of propellant) than other rocket fuels. Therefore, NASA can use this weight savings to bring a bigger spacecraft with a greater payload to the moon than with the same amount of conventional propellants. CECE is a step forward in NASA's efforts to develop reliable, robust technologies to return to the moon – and a winter wonder.

CECE has just completed a third round of intensive testing by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in West Palm Beach, Florida. Get the full story from nasa.gov.

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Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

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Jan. 14, 2009: In the game of astronomy, size matters. To get crisp, clear images of things billions of light years away, a telescope needs to be big.

"The bigger the better," says astronomer Harley Thronson, who leads advanced concept studies in astronomy at the Goddard Space Flight Center. And he thinks "NASA's new Ares V rocket is going to completely change the rules of the game."

Ares V is the rocket that will deliver NASA's next manned lunar lander to the moon as well as all the cargo needed for a lunar base. Its roomy shroud could hold about eight school buses, and the rocket will pack enough power to boost almost 180,000 kg (396,000 lbs -- about 16 or 17 school buses) into low Earth orbit. Ares V can haul six times more mass and three times the volume the space shuttle can.

"Imagine the kind of telescope a rocket like that could launch," says Thronson. "It could revolutionize astronomy."

Right: The roomy shroud of the Ares V could hold about eight school buses. Credit: NASA

Optical engineer Phil Stahl of the Marshall Space Flight Center offers this example: "Ares V could carry an 8-meter diameter monolithic telescope, something that we already have the technology to build. The risk would be relatively low, and there are some big cost advantages in not having to cram a large telescope into a smaller launcher."

For comparison, he points out that Hubble is only 2.4 meters wide.

An 8-meter monolithic telescope would see things more than three times as sharply as Hubble can. More importantly, in the same amount of observing time, the larger mirror would see objects that are about 11 times fainter than Hubble sees because the 8-meter telescope has 11 times the light collecting area.

But Ares V can go yet bigger. It could transport a huge segmented telescope – one with several separate mirror panels that are folded up for transport like the James Webb Space Telescope--but three times the size!

Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery The Space Telescope Science Institute's Marc Postman has been planning a 16-meter segmented optical/ultraviolet telescope called ATLAST, short for Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope. The science from an aperture its size would be spectacular.

"ATLAST would be nearly 2000 times more sensitive than the Hubble Telescope and would provide images about seven times sharper than either Hubble or James Webb," says Postman. "It could help us find the long sought answer to a very compelling question -- 'Is there life elsewhere in the galaxy?'"

ATLAST's superior sensitivity would allow astronomers to hugely increase their sample size of stars for observation. Then, discovery of planets hospitable to life could be just around the corner!

"With our space-based telescope, we could obtain the spectrum of Earth-mass planets orbiting a huge number of nearby [60 - 70 light years from Earth] stars," says Postman. "We could detect any oxygen and water in the planets' spectral signatures. ATLAST could also precisely determine the birth dates of stars in nearby galaxies, giving us an accurate description of how galaxies assemble their stars."

Above: Even the smallest space telescope envisioned for launch onboard the Ares V would dwarf Hubble. Image credit: NASA.

This telescope could also probe the link between galaxies and black holes. Scientists know that almost all modern galaxies have supermassive black holes in their centers. "There must be a fundamental relationship between the formation of supermassive black holes and the formation of galaxies," explains Postman, "but we don't understand the nature of that relationship. Do black holes form first and act as seeds for the growth of galaxies around them? Or do galaxies form first and serve as incubators for supermassive black holes? A large UV/optical telescope could answer this question: If our telescope finds ancient galaxies that do not have supermassive black holes in their centers, it will mean galaxies can exist without them."

Dan Lester of the University of Texas at Austin envisions another 16-meter telescope, this one for detecting far-infrared wavelengths.

"The far-infrared telescope is quite different from, and quite complementary to, the optical telescopes of Stahl and Postman," says Lester. "In the far-infrared part of the spectrum, we generally aren't looking at starlight itself, but at the glow of warm dust and gas that surrounds the stars. In the very early stages of star formation, the proto-star is surrounded by layers of dust that visible light can't penetrate. Our telescope will allow us to see down into the innards of these giant dense clouds that are forming stars deep inside."

Observations in the far-infrared are especially challenging. These long wavelengths are hundreds of times larger than visible light, so it's hard to get a clear picture. "A very big telescope is necessary for good clarity at IR wavelengths," notes Lester.

Above: An artist's concept of the Single Aperture Far-Infrared Telescope (SAFIR) that could be launched aboard the Ares V. [Larger image]

Like the telescopes of Stahl and Postman, Lester's Single Aperture Far-Infrared Telescope ('SAFIR' for short), comes in two flavors for the Ares V: an 8-meter monolithic version and a 16-meter segmented version. Lester realized that, with an Ares V, he could launch an 8-meter telescope that didn't need complicated folding and unfolding. "But on the other hand, if we don't mind adding the complexity and cost of folding and still use an Ares V, we could launch a really mammoth telescope," says Lester.

In addition to all the above telescopes, Ares V could boost an 8-meter-class X-ray telescope into space. NASA's highly-successful Chandra X-ray Observatory has a 1 meter diameter mirror, so just imagine what an 8-meter Chandra might reveal!

Roger Brissenden of the Chandra X-ray Center is excited about the possibility of a future 8-meter-class X-ray telescope called Gen-X.

"Gen-X would be an extraordinarily powerful X-ray observatory that could open up new frontiers in astrophysics," he says. "This telescope will observe the very first black holes, stars and galaxies, born just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, and help us determine how these evolve with time. Right now, the study of the young universe is almost purely in the realm of theory, but with Gen-X's extreme sensitivity (more than 1000 times that of Chandra) these early objects would be revealed."

Indeed, Ares V flings shutters open wide on our view of the cosmos. It shakes off the shackles of mass and volume constraints from science missions and sweeps us into deep space to view "...a hundred things/ You have not dreamed of."

"We could get incredible astronomy from this big rocket," says Thronson, a professional dreamer. "I can't wait."

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Author: Dauna Coulter | Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Biggest Full Moon of the Year: Take 2

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January 8, 2009: When last month's full Moon rose over Florida, onlooker Raquel Stanton of Cocoa Beach realized that something was up.

"The Moon was stunningly gorgeous--and it looked bigger than usual!" she says. "My whole family noticed and watched in awe."

Like millions of others around the world, she had witnessed the biggest full Moon of 2008--a "perigee Moon," 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser Moons she had seen before. "I'll never forget it."

Alert: It's about to happen again.

This Saturday night, Jan. 10th, another perigee Moon is coming. It's the biggest full Moon of 2009, almost identical to the one that impressed onlookers in Dec. 2008.

Above: The perigee full Moon of Dec. 2008. "The moon was very bright and BIG! Just watching it with my telescope was exciting enough, but I had to take this picture for the records," says photographer Ron Hodges of Midland, Texas.

Johannes Kepler explained the phenomenon 400 years ago. The Moon's orbit around Earth is not a circle; it is an ellipse, with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other. Astronomers call the point of closest approach "perigee," and that is where the Moon will be this weekend.

Perigee full Moons come along once or twice a year. 2008 ended with one and now 2009 is beginning with another. It's the best kind of déjà vu for people who love the magic of a moonlit landscape.

January is a snowy month in the northern hemisphere, and the combination of snow + perigee moonlight is simply amazing. When the Moon soars overhead at midnight, the white terrain springs to life with a reflected glow that banishes night, yet is not the same as day. You can read a newspaper, ride a bike, write a letter, and at the same time count the stars overhead. It is an otherworldly experience that really must be sampled first hand.

Above: The perigee full of Dec. 2008. "A cold wind was blowing as the Moon set over a neighbor's farm," says photographer Eric Ingmundson of Sparta, Wisconsin. "Next time (Jan. 10th) I plan to use a tripod."

Another magic moment happens when the perigee Moon is near the horizon. That is when illusion mixes with reality to produce a truly stunning view. For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, low-hanging Moons look unnaturally large when they beam through trees, buildings and other foreground objects. This weekend, why not let the "Moon illusion" amplify a full Moon that's extra-big to begin with? The swollen orb rising in the east at sunset may seem so nearby, you catch yourself reaching out to touch it.

You won't be the only one. Even at perigee, the Moon is 360,000 km away, yet the distant beauty beckons to poets, stargazers and NASA with equal force: "Come back," it seems to say, "I'm really not so far away."

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Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Sixteen Tons of Moondust

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...I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal ....
You load sixteen tons, what do you get .... 1

Jan. 7, 2009: If you listen closely, you might hear a NASA project manager singing this song. Lately, Marshall Space Flight Center's Carol McClemore has been working at the end of a sledge hammer opposite a big pile of rocks, so she has good reason to sing the song Tennessee Ernie Ford made famous.

"I call it 'choppin' rocks,' " says McClemore, who manages Marshall's Regolith Simulant Team." The guys keep correcting me. 'It's 'bustin' rocks, Carole,' they say."

Whether choppin' or bustin', what's this petite woman doing with a sledge hammer in her hands? She's making fake moon dust.

"We call it "simulated lunar regolith'," says McClemore. "We need just the right kind of rocks to make this stuff, and we're getting them from the Stillwater Mine in Nye, Montana."

Above: Carol McClemore of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center busts rocks at the Stillwater Mine in Nye, Montana. [Larger image]

The Marshall team is working with the US Geological Survey (USGS) to develop a realistic moon dust substitute, or simulant, in support of NASA's future lunar exploration. Team members pound on boulder sized rocks to break them into manageable chunks, dump these chunks into buckets, and lug the buckets over to pickup trucks containing reinforced containers to hold the rocks. The pickups carry the rocks down the mountain for loading onto 18 wheelers that transport tons of the material to the USGS in Denver. The USGS makes the simulant by crushing and grinding the rocks and blending in small amounts of natural minerals according to a well-researched "recipe" to approximate the make up of genuine moondust and moon dirt.

Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery This is a lot of work, but McClemore believes it's worth the effort: "NASA plans to send humans to the moon to live and work, and the place is filled with gritty dust and powder that sticks to space suits, equipment – to anything and everything," she explains. "It's even inhaled into lungs. So we need high fidelity simulant to work with here on Earth to learn how to work in the real thing up there on the moon. There simply aren't enough Apollo samples of real moon dust to do all the research that needs to be done."

Simulated regolith can be used as a "guinea pig" to help researchers find ways to make useful things from moon dirt. A favorite example is concrete. Adding, for instance, epoxy to lunar regolith makes a very strong concrete that could be used to build habitats or other structures. Properly baked, a mixture of sulphur and moondust also makes good concrete, and other recipes are sure to be found as the research progresses. On the moon and later on Mars, local resources are going to be crucial to astronauts who can't remain wholly dependent on Earth for supplies.

Working with simulated moondust may help researchers figure out how to extract valuable elements and minerals from the real thing.

Above: The moon is blanketed in dust--an ever present fact of life for future lunar explorers. Photo credit: NASA/Apollo 17. [Larger image]

"For example, moondust and many moon rocks are rich in oxygen," says Christian Schrader, a geologist on the Marshall regolith team. "If we can figure out how to extract it, humans could actually use moondust as a source of breathable air in a future lunar habitat. And the oxygen, along with the hydrogen that exists in the dirt, rocks, and possibly in polar ice, could be used to generate electricity using fuel cells, which make drinkable water as a by-product. Hydrogen and oxygen are also rocket propellant."

It seems that the Stillwater Mine has "the right stuff" to use as feedstock in creating the simulant so vital to lunar research. Some of the rocks there are 2.7 billion years old.

"There's a huge magma chamber that formed under the ground there," says Schrader. "The magma crystallized over time and formed thick layers of what we call 'anorthosite2.' The geology at Stillwater is roughly analogous to how the moon's highland crust crystallized and cooled, so it's a great place for us to go rock collecting."

That's why these scientists are heading up the side of a rocky mountain with sledge hammers and pick axes to pound away at big boulders that promise to yield, albeit with great resistance, good rocks for making regolith.

"Sometimes arctic winds blow down off the mountains and pummel us while we work," says Schrader. "It can be brutal."

But it's all in the name of science. So don't just stand there leaning on your shovel! Start choppin'!

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Special thanks: "The Stillwater Mine people have been very helpful in so many ways,"says Carol McClemore. "In addition to the simulant feedstock, they've donated manhours and trucks to help us. And the mine has a lot of other advantages for us. Logging and mining roads crisscross the mine, so we can get trucks in there for loading the tons of material we gather. We couldn't do it without them. "

Author: Dauna Coulter | Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

The year 2008 will long be remembered as the wettest year on record for St. Louis. Officially, St. Louis recorded 57.96 inches of precipitation in 2008, which was nearly three inches more than the previous record year of 1982.

2008 Weather Events

ST. LOUIS 
(1870-2008)

TOP TEN WETTEST YEARS ON RECORD

 1. 57.96 (2008)
 2. 54.97 (1982)
 3. 54.76 (1993)
 4. 51.65 (1984)
 5. 50.83 (1927)
 6. 50.73 (1985)
 7. 50.31 (1946)
 8. 49.28 (1915)
 9. 49.20 (1898)
10. 48.46 (1876)

Normal = 38.75 
(1971-2000) 

Pacific halibut.

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

NOAA today proposed reducing the number of halibut that charter vessel anglers in southeast Alaska can keep, from two each day to one.

“Sport charter fishing has grown in southeast Alaska while halibut abundance has decreased,” said Doug Mecum, NOAA’s Fisheries Service acting regional administrator for Alaska. "We’re proposing to reduce the charter halibut catch to protect the halibut resource."

The proposed rule, which would take effect this spring, would allow each charter vessel client to use only one fishing line, and no more than six lines targeting halibut would be allowed on a charter vessel at one time. The rule would prohibit guides and crew from catching and retaining halibut while charter halibut clients are on board.

NOAA’s Fisheries Service put a similar rule in place last spring, but sport charter halibut operators challenged it on procedural grounds and the agency withdrew the rule.

Public comment on the proposed rule is open through Jan. 21, 2009. After considering public comment, NOAA expects to publish a final rule in the spring of 2009. To read the proposed rule and see how to submit comments, go to the NOAA Marine Fisheries Service Alaska Regional Office Web site.

Charter halibut operators in southeast Alaska waters have exceeded their guideline harvest level of 1.43 million pounds for the past four years. The actual sport charter harvest was 1.75 million pounds in 2004, 1.95 million pounds in 2005, 1.86 million pounds in 2006, and 1.92 million pounds in 2007.  The guideline harvest level dropped to 0.93 million pounds for 2008. Managers expect that it will have been exceeded for 2008 when the harvest numbers are final.

The International Pacific Halibut Commission, with representatives from the U.S. and Canada, annually estimates halibut abundance in each halibut fishing area along the Pacific Coast. NOAA’s Fisheries Service, in cooperation with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, establishes the charter vessel guideline harvest levels based on the commission’s abundance estimates.

The commission annually establishes the commercial halibut fishery catch limits in each area, taking into account charter vessel harvests and other sources of halibut mortality in order to protect the halibut resource from overharvest. 

The commission has reduced the commercial halibut catch in southeast Alaska from nearly 11 million pounds annually between 2004 and 2006 to just over six million pounds for 2008. The final commercial harvest level for 2009, proposed at four and a half million pounds, will be set by the International Pacific Halibut Commission in January.

High resolution (Credit: /NOAA)

Greenhouse gases play an important role in North American climate, but differences in regional ocean temperatures may hold a key to predicting future U.S. regional climate changes, according to a new NOAA-led scientific assessment. The assessment is one in a series of synthesis and assessment reports coordinated by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

This latest assessment, Reanalysis of Historical Climate Data for Key Atmospheric Features: Implications for Attribution of Causes of Observed Change, describes what has changed—and why—in North America’s climate over the past half century. The assessment addresses the likelihood and extent to which human activity or natural variations have driven surface warming, precipitation, droughts, and floods.

“A major implication of this assessment is that improving predictions of regional sea-surface temperatures will be crucial to predicting climate variability across the U.S. from years to decades, as well as projecting long-term regional climate changes,” said Randall Dole, lead author and a scientist at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

Some regional temperatures rose sharply, while others held steady; drought impacts worsened; and precipitation swung widely—all within the continent’s gradually warming climate.

Changes in sea-surface temperature patterns likely played an important role in determining differences in U.S. regional temperature trends. They also contributed to large precipitation swings from year to year or decade to decade during the past 50 years.

While a general trend toward warmer ocean conditions is expected with increasing greenhouse gases, regional differences in sea surface temperature trends can be either natural or human-caused, according to Dole. 

The assessment found that an increase in greenhouse gases is likely responsible for more than half of the average continental warming of 1.6° Fahrenheit observed during the past 50 years.  Greenhouse gases, emitted by fossil fuel burning and natural sources, trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere and warm the surface.

Drought impacts have likely become more severe as surface temperatures warmed, increasing evaporation, reducing soil moisture, and causing other water stresses. The scientists found no long-term trends in where or how often droughts occur or in how much rain or snow has fallen on average each year.

The assessment also describes in detail how climate scientists use enormous amounts of data in a powerful method for examining past climate, called “reanalysis.” Another section illustrates how they systematically probe cause-and-effect relationships to find the most likely cause of a climate trend, a prolonged drought, or an unusually hot year – a process termed ‘attribution’.

In a reanalysis—or retrospective analysis—a high-quality climate record is constructed from past observations collected over a period of time from many different observing systems and combined with a climate model. Reanalysis data, which currently extend as far back as the mid-twentieth century, are important in helping researchers understand how climate evolved.

“Using reanalysis and attribution methods we can now say with more confidence what’s driving some of the extreme climate conditions of the past few years: whether it’s global warming, El Niño, La Niña, or some other pattern,” said NOAA scientist Martin Hoerling, also of the Earth System Research Laboratory and a lead author on the report. “That’s the information policymakers and the public ask for.” Hoerling also heads NOAA’s climate attribution team.

Jason-2 satellite.

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

NOAA announced that scientists around the world now have access to valuable data from a new international satellite, the Jason-2/Ocean Surface Topography Mission. This information allows them to closely watch the rate of global sea-level rise and monitor changing ocean features around tropical cyclones.

Jason-2/OSTM, launched June 20, 2008, is a joint effort between NOAA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). After five months of calibration and validation activities an international team of scientists, including representatives from NOAA, declared the near real-time Jason-2 data were ready for public distribution.

A leading NOAA scientist said data from Jason-2/OSTM is especially crucial now. “The sea level is rising at a rate of 3.2 mm/year, nearly twice as fast as the previous 100 years,” said Laury Miller, chief of NOAA’s Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry. “If this rate continues unchanged during the coming decades, it will have a huge impact on coastal regions, with erosion and flooding. We need the Jason-2 data to help us monitor what’s happening.”

The spacecraft is flying in a low Earth orbit and monitoring 95 percent of the world’s ice-free oceans every 10 days. Like earlier missions TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1, Jason-2/OSTM is extending the climate data record by providing a long-term survey of Earth’s oceans, tracking ocean circulation patterns, and measuring sea-surface heights and the rate of sea-level rise. These are critical factors in understanding climate change.

Along with detecting climate change factors, Jason-2/OSTM is being used to assist in forecasting short-term, severe weather events, including tropical cyclones. NOAA will use the altimeter measurements to map the ocean heat content — the fuel that feeds a storm’s intensity — along the storm’s predicted track.

NOAA, working with CNES, is providing ground system support for this mission. This includes: commanding the satellite, downloading all the data and distributing the information to weather and climate forecasters, who are monitoring ocean-born storms and phenomena such as El Niño/La Niña and global sea-level rise. 

Throughout the mission, CNES will continue to monitor and evaluate the satellite and its instruments. EUMETSAT will process and distribute data received by its own ground station to European users and archive the data. NOAA will process and distribute data received by its ground stations to non-European users and archive the data. NASA will evaluate the performance of the Global Positioning System, laser and radiometry instruments and validate scientific products.

“With the successful transition of this important measurement to our partners, NOAA and EUMETSAT, we’ve entered a new era in the long-term monitoring of sea-level from space,” said Lee-Lueng Fu, OSTM/Jason-2 project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The year 2008 is on track to be one of the 10 warmest years on record for the globe, based on the combined average of worldwide land and ocean surface temperatures, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. For November alone, the month is fourth warmest all-time globally, for the combined land and ocean surface temperature. The early assessment is based on records dating back to 1880. 

• The combined global land and ocean surface temperature from January – November was 0.86 degree F (0.48 degree C) above the 20th century mean of 57.2 degrees F (14.0 degrees C).

• Separately, the global land surface temperature for 2008 was the fifth warmest, with an average temperature 1.44 degrees F (0.80 degree C) above the 20th century mean of 48.1 degrees F (9.0 degrees C).

• Also separately, the global ocean surface temperature for 2008 was 0.67 degrees F (0.37 degrees C) above the 20th century mean of 61.0 degrees F (16.1 degrees C).

• The November combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.06 degrees F (0.59 degree C) above the 20th century mean of 55.2 degrees F (12.9 degrees C).

• Separately, the November 2008 global land surface temperature was fourth warmest on record and was 2.11 degrees F (1.17 degrees C) above the 20th century mean of 42.6 degrees F (5.9 degrees C).

• For November, the global ocean surface temperature was 0.68 degrees F (0.38 degree C) above the 20th century mean of 60.4 degrees F (15.8 degrees C). 

• In the tropical Pacific, 2008 was dominated by El Niño-Southern Oscillation neutral conditions. La Niña conditions that began the year had dissipated by June.  

• Arctic sea ice extent in 2008 reached its second lowest melt season extent on record in September.  The minimum of 1.74 million square miles (4.52 million square kilometers) reached on September 12 was 0.86 million square miles (2.24 million square kilometers) below the 1979-2000 average minimum extent. 

• The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season was the third most costly on record in current dollars, after 2005 and 2004, and the fourth most active year since 1944. This was the first season with a major hurricane (Category 3 or above) each month from July through November. With the exception of the South Indian Ocean, all other tropical cyclone regions recorded near to below-average activity during 2008. Globally, there were 89 named tropical cyclones, with 41 reaching the equivalent of hurricane strength (74 mph), and 20 achieving the equivalent of major hurricane status (111 mph or greater) based on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

• The United States recorded a preliminary total of just under 1,700 tornadoes from January - November. This ranks 2008 second behind 2004 for the most tornadoes in a year, since reliable records began in 1953.

• Torrential rains caused widespread flooding in parts of Vietnam, Ethiopia, northern Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, and the northern Philippines during November. Several million people were displaced and nearly 200 fatalities were reported. Monsoonal rainfall was much above average over many regions in 2008. Mumbai, India, recorded its greatest June rainfall in seven years, while Hanoi, Vietnam, observed its greatest October rains since 1984.

• Persistent severe to exceptional drought plagued portions of south central Texas and the Southeast U.S. in 2008. Based on the Palmer Drought Index, the 2008 percent area of the contiguous United States experiencing moderate-extreme drought peaked at 31 percent in June – July. Australia’s worst drought in a century eased early in 2008, but drought conditions continued in parts of the country.

• Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in November was 12.66 million square miles (32.78 million square kilometers). This is 0.50 million square miles (1.29 million square kilometers) below the 1966-2008 November average. Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent has been below average for most of 2008.

The analyses in NCDC’s global reports are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision.  Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.

NCDC’s ranking of 2008 as ninth warmest if expected trends continue compares to a similar ranking of ninth warmest based on an analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The NASA analysis indicates that the January – November global temperature was 0.76 degree F (0.42 degree C) above the 20th century mean. The NOAA and NASA analyses differ slightly in methodology, but both use data from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center — the federal government's official source for climate data.

Solar Flare Surprise

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Dec. 15, 2008: Solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the solar system. Packing a punch equal to a hundred million hydrogen bombs, they obliterate everything in their immediate vicinity. Not a single atom should remain intact.

At least that's how it's supposed to work.

"We've detected a stream of perfectly intact hydrogen atoms shooting out of an X-class solar flare," says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. "What a surprise! These atoms could be telling us something new about what happens inside flares."

Above: The X9-class solar flare of Dec. 5, 2006, observed by the Solar X-Ray Imager aboard NOAA's GOES-13 satellite. [Larger image]

The event occurred on Dec. 5, 2006. A large sunspot rounded the sun's eastern limb and with little warning it exploded. On the "Richter scale" of flares, which ranks X1 as a big event, the blast registered X9, making it one of the strongest flares of the past 30 years.

NASA managers braced themselves. Such a ferocious blast usually produces a blizzard of high-energy particles dangerous to both satellites and astronauts. Indeed, moments after the explosion, radio emissions from a shock wave in the sun's atmosphere signaled that a swarm of particles was on its way.

An hour later they arrived. But they were not the particles researchers expected.

NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft made the discovery: "It was a burst of hydrogen atoms," says Mewaldt. "No other elements were present, not even helium (the sun's second most abundant atomic species). Pure hydrogen streamed past the spacecraft for a full 90 minutes."

Next came more than 30 minutes of quiet. The burst subsided and STEREO's particle counters returned to low levels. The event seemed to be over when a second wave of particles enveloped the spacecraft. These were the "broken atoms" that flares are supposed to produce—protons and heavier ions such as helium, oxygen and iron. "Better late than never," he says.

Above: STEREO particle counts on Dec. 5, 2006. The vertical axis measures the angle to the sun. Note how the initial hydrogen burst arrived from a narrow angle while the ions that followed swarmed in from all directions. The "swarming action" is a result of deflections by the sun's magnetic field--a force not felt by the neutral hydrogen.

At first, this unprecedented sequence of events baffled scientists, but now Mewaldt and colleagues believe they're getting to the bottom of the mystery.

First, how did the hydrogen atoms resist destruction?

"They didn't," says Mewaldt. "We believe they began their journey to Earth in pieces, as protons and electrons. Before they escaped the sun’s atmosphere, however, some of the protons recaptured an electron, forming intact hydrogen atoms. The atoms left the sun in a fast, straight shot before they could be broken apart again." (For experts: The team believes the electrons were recaptured by some combination of radiative recombination and charge exchange.)

Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery Second, what delayed the ions?

"Simple," says Mewaldt. "Ions are electrically charged and they feel the sun's magnetic field. Solar magnetism deflects ions and slows their progress to Earth. Hydrogen atoms, on the other hand, are electrically neutral. They can shoot straight out of the sun without magnetic interference."

Imagine two runners dashing for the finish line. One (the ion) is forced to run in a zig-zag pattern with zigs and zags as wide as the orbit of Mars. The other (the hydrogen atom) runs in a straight line. Who's going to win?

"The hydrogen atoms reached Earth two hours before the ions," says Mewaldt.

Mewaldt believes that all strong flares might emit hydrogen bursts, but they simply haven't been noticed before. He's looking forward to more X-flares now that the two STEREO spacecraft are widely separated on nearly opposite sides of the Sun. (In 2006 they were still together near Earth.) STEREO-A and –B may be able to triangulate future bursts and pinpoint the source of the hydrogen. This would allow the team to test their ideas about the surprising phenomenon.

"All we need now," he says, "is some solar activity."

For more information about this research, look for the article "STEREO Observations of Energetic Neutral Atoms during the 5 December 2006 Solar Flare" by R. A. Mewaldt et al, in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

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December 10, 2008: The James Webb Space Telescope, targeted for launch in 2013, is already taking an incredible journey right here on Earth. It's zigzagging up, down, and across the US to be "spit and polished" to perfection for its lofty space mission.

"To find the first stars and galaxies that formed in the early universe, which are millions and even billions of light years away, the Webb telescope mirror has to be wickedly smooth," says Jeff Kegley of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Right: The James Webb Space Telescope, an artist's concept. Credit: ESA. [Larger image]

To get ready for space, the 18 mirror segments that will ultimately form the Webb telescope’s huge primary mirror are trucked from pit stop to pit stop in tandem cross-country for careful processing and polishing. They visit seven different states, some several times.

During the long odyssey, every precaution is taken for their protection. How many years of bad luck would you have if you broke one of these mirrors?

"That's something we don't talk about," laughs Helen Cole, also of Marshall. "But seriously, we do have three spare segments, so no problem there."

Let's trace a mirror segment's Earthly journey from rough start to "wickedly smooth," and finally to union with its 17 siblings to form a 6.5 meter (21 ½ foot) wide whole with a total area of 25 square-meters (almost 30 square yards).

The story begins in a Utah beryllium mine. Beryllium is one of the lightest of all metals, and the "stuff" of the telescope's mirrors.

Above: The making of the JWST mirrors begins here in a Utah Beryllium mine. Photo credit: Brush Wellman, Inc., Beryllium Products division. [Larger image]

Technicians in Ohio sift and purify the gritty beryllium powder from Utah into an extremely uniform optical grade especially for the Webb mirror. Then they pour the powder in a big, flat can, apply heat and pressure, and pump out the residual gas to create a large slab called a mirror billet. They bathe the billet in acid to burn off any stainless steel stuck to the billet when the can is removed. Next they split the billet in half Oreo-cookie-style to form two mirror blanks (no cream!). These mirror blanks are the largest ever produced in beryllium.

Workers in Alabama machine the back of each blank into a honeycomb structure to make the blanks lighter without reducing stiffness. The machined ribs are less than 1 millimeter thick -- almost paper cut thin!

"This precision machining/etching removes 92 percent of a blank's mass," says Lee Feinberg of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Mass is critical in launching space missions."

Next, a California company grinds and polishes the segments to a very smooth and exact shape and optically tests them at room temperature.

Above: Key stops in the long journey of the JWST. Not shown: space. [Larger image]

But the Webb telescope will not operate in room temperature. Not only will this telescope mirror be "wickedly smooth," it will also be wickedly cold in space. Because it is an infrared telescope, the JWST is designed to pick up the heat of faint, awesomely distant stars and galaxies. To do that it has to be kept extremely cold. It will operate in space at about -238 deg Celsius (-396 deg Fahrenheit, 35K).

"The extreme cold may cause the telescope's structures and mirrors to change shape, so testing has to be done here on Earth under similar, hyper-cold conditions," says Cole.

This super-cold testing is done in Alabama. The Marshall Space Flight Center's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility has a vacuum chamber that can simulate the incredibly cold conditions of space. Testing in this chamber reveals even the tiniest distortions that happen to the mirror segments in the cold. The tests provide precise data that specifies the exact repolishing to be done to compensate ahead of time for distortions likely to occur in space.

Above: (Left) A prototype JWST beryllium mirror segment at Tinsley Labs in Richmond, California; (Right) Mirror testing under space-cold conditions at the Marshall Space Flight Center's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility. [Larger images: #1, #2]

Once the mirror segments are polished to precision, gold is evaporated over them, forming a very thin coating on the smooth mirror surface.

"This gold coating is highly reflective over all the wavelengths of the Webb telescope, from visible to mid-infrared," says Feinberg.

All 18 segments finally meet at Goddard Space Flight Center. Here, they're mounted on structures that will ultimately hold them in place and let them perform as if they were part of a single giant hexagonal mirror. (The mirror structure will be folded with its shield origami style when it's time to fit in a rocket.) Next the telescope is fully assembled and attached to the instrument module, and the whole kit and caboodle is acoustic and vibration tested.

Final cryogenic testing takes place at Johnson Space Center, in the same vacuum chamber that tested the Apollo lunar lander.

The telescope is integrated with the spacecraft and sunshield at Northrop Grumman in California. It will lift-off from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 rocket.

Are we there yet? Almost. Only 930,000 more miles to go....

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Author: Dauna Coulter | Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Return of the Leonids

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Dec. 4, 2008: Astronomers from Caltech and NASA say a strong shower of Leonid meteors is coming in 2009. Their prediction follows an outburst on Nov. 17, 2008, that broke several years of "Leonid quiet" and heralds even more intense activity next November.

"On Nov. 17, 2009, we expect the Leonids to produce upwards of 500 meteors per hour," says Bill Cooke of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "That's a very strong display."

Forecasters define a meteor storm as 1000 or more meteors per hour. That would make the 2009 Leonids "a half-storm," says Jeremie Vaubaillon of Caltech, who successfully predicted a related outburst just a few weeks ago.

Right: A composite, all-sky image of the 2008 Leonid outburst over Colorado. Credit: Chris Peterson, Cloudbait Observatory. [more]

On Nov. 17, 2008, Earth passed through a stream of debris from comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The gritty, dusty debris stream was laid down by the Leonids' parent comet more than five hundred years ago in 1466. Almost no one expected the old stream to produce a very strong shower, but it did. Observers in Asia and Europe counted as many as 100 meteors per hour.

Vaubaillon predicted the crossing with one-hour precision. "I have a computer program that calculates the orbits of Leonid debris streams," he explains. "It does a good job anticipating encounters even with very old streams like this one."

Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery The Nov. 17, 2008 outburst proved that the 1466 stream is rich in meteor-producing debris, setting the stage for an even better display in 2009.

On Nov. 17, 2009, Earth will pass through the 1466 stream again, but this time closer to the center. Based on the number of meteors observed in 2008, Vaubaillon can estimate the strength of the coming display: five hundred or more Leonids per hour during a few-hour peak centered on 21:43 UT.

"Our own independent model of the debris stream agrees," says Cooke. "We predict a sub-storm level outburst on Nov. 17, 2009, peaking sometime between 21:34 and 21:44 UT."

The timing favors observers in Asia, although Cooke won't rule out a nice show over North America when darkness falls hours after the peak. "I hope so," he says. "It's a long way to Mongolia."

Above: Meteor counts for the 2008 Leonid outburst compiled by members of the International Meteor Organization. [more]

Many readers will remember the great Leonid showers of 1998-2002. The best years (1999 and 2001) produced storms of up to 3000 Leonids per hour. The 2009 display won’t be so intense. Instead, if predictions are correct, next year's shower could resemble the 1998 Leonids, a "half-storm"-level event caused by a stream dating from 1333. That old stream turned out to be rich in nugget-sized debris that produced an abundance of fireballs. Many observers consider the 1998 Leonids to be the best they've ever seen.

Could 2009 be the same? Vaubaillon expects a similar number of meteors but fewer fireballs. If the models are correct, the 1466 stream in Earth’s path contains plenty of dust but not so many nuggets, thus reducing the fireball count. On the bright side, the Moon will be new next Nov. 17th so nothing will stand in the way of the shower reaching its full potential.

Mark your calendar and stay tuned for updates from Science@NASA.

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Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

The potential for coral growth in the Caribbean region is dramatically changing due to ocean acidification.

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

A new study, which confirms significant ocean acidification across much of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, reports strong natural variations in ocean chemistry in some parts of the Caribbean that could affect the way reefs respond to future ocean acidification. Such short-term variability has often been underappreciated and may prove an important consideration when predicting the long-term impacts of ocean acidification to coral reefs. 

Conducted by scientists from NOAA and the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, the study was published in the Oct. 31, 2008 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans.

Previous NOAA studies have shown that a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans place in the atmosphere each year ends up being dissolved into the ocean. The result is the ocean becomes more acidic, making it harder for corals, clams, oysters, and other marine life to build their skeletons or shells. A number of recent studies demonstrate that ocean acidification is likely to harm coral reefs by slowing coral growth and making reefs more vulnerable to erosion and storms.

In the new study, NOAA scientists used four years of ocean chemistry measurements taken aboard the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ship Explorer of the Seas together with daily satellite observations to estimate changes in ocean chemistry over the past two decades in the Caribbean region. The resulting new ocean acidification tracking products are available online along with animations of the changes since 1988.

"Ocean acidification has become an important issue to coral reef managers and researchers,” said Tim Keeney, deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere and co-chair of the United States Coral Reef Task Force. “These new tools provide these communities with better information to guide future research. This is the first time that anyone has been able to track ocean acidification on a monthly basis."

The study supports other findings that ocean acidification is likely to reduce coral reef growth to critical levels before the end of this century unless humans significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. While ocean chemistry across the region is currently deemed adequate to support coral reefs, it is rapidly changing as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise.

“The study demonstrates a strong natural seasonal variability in ocean chemistry in waters around the Florida Keys that could have important consequences for how these reefs respond to future ocean acidification," says NOAA's Dwight Gledhill, Ph.D., lead author of the study.

C. Mark Eakin, Ph.D., coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, said “Organisms from highly variable environments are often better adapted to changes like we have seen in the last 20 years. The real question is how far corals can adapt and if this natural variability will be enough to protect them."

Co-authors of the paper are Rik Wanninkhof, Ph. D., NOAA Research's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Frank J. Millero, Ph. D, University of Miami's Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, and Eakin, NOAA National Satellite and Information Service's Coral Reef Watch.