Chile Volcanic Dust in Patagonia

Two MODIS passes to show the entire spread of the ash from Chile's Puyehue-Cordó volcano. - HLG

TC 05A in the Arabian Sea

They are always so interesting looking, with the contrast of cloud, sand, and sea. - HLG

Did US Destroy Martian Mars Probe??

The Russians are implying that, without any evidence, of course.

It's not the first time the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme (HAARP) has been accused of some malevolent purpose. In fact, it's a conspiracy theorist favourite, most often accused of causing extreme events like the 2010 Haiti earthquake.


HAARP's stated purpose, according to its website, is:


A scientific endeavour aimed at studying the properties and behaviour of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defence purposes.
But those of a suspicious mindset think the project aims to manipulate the ionosphere in order to cause massive disasters. - The Guardian

Beautiful Day to Head to Mars

Mars "Curiosity" Rover is on the way to Mars.  Gorgeous launch at The Cape.  Congrats NASA and JPL!  Onward to the Red Planet. - HLG

Climate forcing by CO2 Overblown?

Climate sensitivity to CO2 probedBy Jennifer Carpenter




Science reporter, BBC News



Global temperatures could be less sensitive to changing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels than previously thought, a study suggests.



The researchers said people should still expect to see "drastic changes" in climate worldwide, but that the risk was a little less imminent.



The results are published in Science.



Previous climate models have used meteorological measurements from the last 150 years to estimate the climate's sensitivity to rising CO2.



From these models, scientists find it difficult to narrow their projections down to a single figure with any certainty, and instead project a range of temperatures that they expect, given a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from pre-industrial levels.



The new analysis, which incorporates palaeoclimate data into existing models, attempts to project future temperatures with a little more certainty.



Lead author Andreas Schmittner from Oregon State University, US, explained that by looking at surface temperatures during the last Ice Age - 21,000 years ago - when humans were having no impact on global temperatures, he, and his colleagues, show that this period was not as cold as previous estimates suggest.



"This implies that the effect of CO2 on climate is less than previously thought," he explained



By incorporating this newly discovered "climate insensitivity" into their models, the international team was able to reduce their uncertainty in future climate projections.



The new models predict that given a doubling in CO2 levels from pre-industrial levels, the Earth's surface temperatures will rise by 1.7 to 2.6 degrees C.



That is a much tighter range than suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s 2007 report, which suggested a rise of between 2 to 4.5 degrees C.



The new analysis also reduces the expected average surface temperatures to just over 2 degrees C, from 3.



The authors stress the results do not mean threat from human-induced climate change should be treated any less seriously, explained palaeoclimatologist Antoni Rosell-Mele from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, who is a member of the team that came up with the new estimates.



But it does mean that to induce large-scale warming of the planet, leading lead to widespread catastrophic consequences, we would have to increase CO2 more than we are going to do in the near future, he said.



"But we don't want that to happen at any time, right?"



"At least, given that no one is doing very much around the planet [about] mitigating CO2 emissions, we have a bit more time," he remarked.

Weather Service Mapping

I like to visit the new Weather Warning map-service, hosted by ESRI, but it reminds me that NOAA needs to take some remedial cartography classes.  I see at least three choices for the pink area off the east coast, in the legend.  How about a little striped pattern, or something other than the two dozen shades of the same colors!  Come on NOAA! - HLG

Global Warming Snow in NE Asia

Global warming continues to spin out of control, as the early snows deepen in NE Asia.

Dust or Ash?

And is there really a difference?  NOAA labeled this as an Argentine Dust Storm, but I believe it is more ash from Chilean volcanoes swirling around in Patagonia. - HLG

Late Season East-Pac Hurricane

Hurricane Kenneth, luckily moving away from Mexico as we head towards December in the northern-hemisphere tropics.

La Nina and Fires in Ecuador

A classic La Nina effect, with extensive fires in agricultural areas of Ecuador, not getting average rainfall levels. - HLG

Forecast for OU win was a bust!

The odds were good, since OU had NEVER lost to Baylor, but even the best forecast sometimes bust, as every weather-guesser knows! - HLG

Mystery of West Coast Rocket Solved?

I find it hard to believe that the military's newly announced hypersonic weapon system is unrelated to the "non-rocket/nothing-to-see-hear" rocket launch we all witnessed off the west coast last year.

U.S. Army Tests Secret Hypersonic Weapon

Published November 17, 2011

Technews Network

• 
  DARPA
  The DARPA Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV)-2, one of several hypersonic test projects underway by various U.S. military agencies.

The U.S. Army's hypersonic weapon prototype streaked across the Pacific Ocean at several times the speed of sound Thurs., Nov. 17, in a flawless maiden test flight. The success could pave the way for a new military capability to strike targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour.

Such a hypersonic weapon concept flies at a relatively flat trajectory within the atmosphere, rather than soaring up toward space like a ballistic missile and eventually coming back down. Hypersonic speed is defined as being at least five times the speed of sound (3,805 mph, or 6,124 kph, at sea level). An unmanned aircraft that can travel at a breakneck pace 20 times the speed of sound will take off Wednesday from an Air Force base in California for a test flight.

The Army's success today built upon lessons learned from two hypersonic test flights carried out by the Pentagon's research arm, called DARPA, in April 2010 and August 2011.

The Army's Advanced Hypersonic Weapon launched aboard a three-stage booster system from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai in Hawaii at 6:30 AM ET, deployed for its hypersonic glide, and eventually splashed down in the Reagan Test Site located near the Kwajalein Atoll.

Pentagon officials kept a careful watch on the flight test from space, air, sea and ground. That allowed them to collect data about aerodynamics, navigation, guidance, and control performance, as well as thermal protection technologies meant to shrug off intense heat during hypersonic flight.

Such success may provide some consolation to DARPA, given that its Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) experienced problems in its two test flights that led to early crashes. HTV-2 reached a speed of Mach 20 during its latest test in August.

The Air Force has also tested its own X-51A Waverider vehicle, most recently on June 13, as an experimental platform for an air-breathing scramjet engine. During the latest test, the X-51A Waverider reached hypersonic speeds of at least Mach 5 before it failed to switch over to its main fuel source.

Having several hypersonic projects resembles the early days of U.S. rocket and missile development, when the Army and Air Force competed to get their rockets off the ground. But any success in the hypersonic realm seems likely to benefit the U.S. military's unified goal for a "Conventional Prompt Global Strike" weapon designed to speedily attack targets around the world

Yet another GIS application in the weather-world

Storm Chaser

Amica Mutual Insurance Maps Real-Time Data, Providing Better Service to Policyholders

By Karen Richardson
Esri

Because many Amica Mutual Insurance policyholders owned homes or other property in the path of Hurricane Irene, the company wanted to ensure that it had adequate resources to provide services when these people needed them most. Amica, a provider of personal insurance for autos, homes, and boats, is headquartered in Lincoln, Rhode Island. Known in the industry for its high standard of customer service, the company has been awarded several J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction awards.

Amica used ArcGIS to track Hurricane Irene and view forecasted wind speeds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NowCoast Web Map Services. This map displays the storm one day prior to making landfall in North Carolina.

Amica monitored Irene last summer as the hurricane moved up the East Coast of the United States, using real-time weather warnings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This information, which included live radar loops focused on the strongest parts of the storm, was brought into Esri's ArcGIS Online as map services, a standard way to view location-based information on the web. By viewing live data streams and comparing them with internal policy data, Amica personnel were able to watch the storm in real time and quickly identify which areas were likely to generate the most claims.
Before their eyes, the path of destruction passed through North Carolina, Virginia, and all the way up the East Coast. "Our exposure along the forecast track was significant, and we immediately knew this would be a big event for us," said Adam Kostecki, a claims examiner in the Property Loss Division at Amica Mutual Insurance.
When tracking Irene, Kostecki combined real-time event tracking and geocoded policy locations displayed in ArcGIS. Taking a NOAA map service that forecasted wind speed and creating it as an ArcGIS web mapping service (WMS), Kostecki was able to input where Hurricane Irene was moving in real time on a map, along with Amica's plotted policies. He and other personnel drew lassos around policies in the areas they were interested in. The lasso Select tool allowed Amica staff to select multiple policies in contiguous areas without being restricted by administrative or geographic boundaries. Combining both datasets—wind speed high enough to cause damage plus policies in the area—Amica found out the number of policies that might be at risk.
By viewing the policy locations along with the area of impact, Kostecki could find out exactly which policies were in the path of the event and generate reports for claims adjusters quickly. "Simply by viewing and exploring the data in ArcGIS, I simplified and improved the accurate identification of customers in Hurricane Irene's impact area," said Kostecki.
For insurers, knowing precisely where damage has occurred is paramount in developing a timely and appropriate response. The quicker an insurer can respond to claims, the faster people can rebuild and continue on with their lives. Being able to determine exposures in different areas, as well as knowing the likely severity of the damage, allowed the Amica claims department to proactively plan for potential claims volume. "Once Irene passed, we plotted claims as they were reported," said Kostecki. "Waiting days for first-responder reports, damage models, or even post-event aerial imagery just isn't an option anymore when responding to catastrophes."
Knowing how many policyholders might be affected helped Amica better determine how many adjusters were needed and where they should be sent after Hurricane Irene passed. From the information gathered in ArcGIS, the staff was able to generate a quick summary and export the information into a report. This information provided a better picture of how many claims Amica might need to respond to in a certain geographic area.
"We had a much better idea of what our claim potential was going to be after this event," said Kostecki. "And even better, we had this information ready to go hours after the storm."
Amica implemented the use of GIS in claims about five years ago, in order to better estimate the company's exposure after a catastrophic event such as a hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, or tornado. Knowing this information helps Amica ensure that it is appropriately staffed to handle the volume of claims that might be reported. Since implementing GIS technology, Amica has realized that pushing this technology to the front lines could have a profound impact on the way it services its policyholders. Kostecki explained, "It's a technology that our staff embraces—because it makes their jobs easier, and it allows them to be more efficient."
For more information on how ArcGIS is used in the insurance industry, visit esri.com/insurance.

Song Heard in Dubai

This was actually heard in Dubai during a fog event...

Dubai Skyscrapers in the Fog

Amazing picture from NatGeo.  The humidity is still very high in the southern Persian Gulf this time of year, but as the mornings are chillier, thick advection sea-fogs roll in amongst some of the tallest buildings on Earth., reminding me of the uber-geeky Cloud City of Star Wars Epsidode 6. -HLG

AN OPEN LETTER - FROM FWSAAB CORP.

Dear Readers,

I, Sterling Gonads, as the new President of FSWAAB Corp (a subsidiary of the Environment Channel and part of the Universal Global Broadcasting System - UGBS), openly apologize for the crude, unsolicited and unapproved comments made by HLG recently.  We at FSWAAB believe in a caring, open and green blog - one that is carefully controlled by our managers at UGBS (UGBS +5% FTSE).  We will not allow crass and ungreen-like statements made by our on-blog geographers who like to pretend that they have a meteorology background.

At FWSAAB, we will ensure the reading blog public that irreverent and humorous commentaries from HLG, BB - and the others who haven't been heard from in years - will continue.  However, the management will also take a hard-line against hurtful statements that go against our public options on the open market.

FWSAAB will be making some exciting changes in the coming weeks to bring it more inline with our other media products like the Environment Channel, UGBS Network News and the Friend Channel.   We will also start including famous meteorologists to make on-blog appearances, some of which appeared on another weather-type channel.  Soon we will also roll out our new Spanish Blog "El Clima de Cuatro Hombres y Una Guapa Chica (ECCHUGC)"

At FWSAAB, we believe in making the environment exciting.  Stay tuned.

Sincerely,
Sterling Gonads, esq.

North Sea Island "Ship-wakes"

Some of the most complicated island-ship-wakes I have ever observed.  Must have something to do with the "Epic" Storm in Alaska. - HLG

Loading Up in Alaska

Alaska will be plunged into quite a cold morass after the "epic" storm of 2011.  All this cold air is preparing to spill down into the central plains and possibly into the deep south.  Should be a fun trip for Thanksgiving Day drivers across the U.S..

On a lighter note - the owners of FSWAAB would like to point out that their blog employees have not mentioned the Penn State scandal.  Such restraint should be congratulated.

BB

First Global Salinity Maps from Aquarius

This map reminds me of the early global sea-surface-temperature maps.  I suspect this will be revolutionary when the data is incorporated into global ocean circulation models. - HLG

New Satellite May Precipitate on Earth

Russian space engineers scrambled Wednesday to salvage an ambitious science mission to Mars after the unmanned spacecraft became stranded in Earth orbit. If they are not successful, the probe, which is loaded with toxic fuel, could re-enter the atmosphere within days or weeks. - NY Times

Tropical Storm Sean 2011

At the time of this image yesterday, Sean was still a "sub-tropical" storm, but was since "upgraded?"

NASA Radar Animation of Asteroid 2005 YU55

Cyclone Formation Alert Arabian Sea

Should head towards Yemen, but they look like they could use some rain.

Wind Farms Causing False Radar Returns?

Wind Farms Disrupting Radar, Scientists Say

By Maxim Lott

Published November 05, 2011

• 
  National Weather Service
  Rainstorm or wind farm? The circled area contains a wind farm, making it unclear whether it is also raining there.

This one's really off the radar.

Wind farms, along with solar power and other alternative energy sources, are supposed to produce the energy of tomorrow. Evidence indicates that their countless whirring fan blades produce something else: "blank spots" that distort radar readings.

Now government agencies that depend on radar -- such as the Department of Defense and the National Weather Service -- are spending millions in a scramble to preserve their detection capabilities. A four-star Air Force general recently spelled out the problem to Dave Beloite, the director of the Department of Defense’s Energy Siting Clearinghouse.

"Look there’s a radar here -- one of our network of Homeland surveillance radars -- and [if you build this wind farm] you essentially are going to put my eyes out in the Northwestern corner of the United States,” Beloite related during a web conference in April.

Spinning wind turbines make it hard to detect incoming planes. To avoid that problem, military officials have blocked wind farm construction near their radars -- and in some cases later allowed them after politicians protested.

Shepherd’s Flat, a wind farm under construction in Oregon, was initially held up by a government notice that the farm would “seriously impair the ability of the (DoD) to detect, monitor and safely conduct air operations."

Then Oregon’s senators got involved.

“The Department of Defense's earlier decision threatened to drop a bomb on job creation in Central Oregon,” democratic Senator Ron Wyden noted in a press release.

Beloite told FoxNews.com that the project was given the green light by the military only after scientists at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory assured the Department of Defense “that there were algorithms and processors they could design for not too much money that would mitigate the problem.”

Beloite said that the MIT technology has proven successful in the last few months.

"[The problem] has been addressed. And I have a letter from the deputy director of operations from U.S. NORAD that says 'step one of the two-step fix worked so well that we recommend we don't spend any more money on step two.'"

The fix the MIT scientists came up with tells the radar not to pay attention to signals in a very small area.

“You just tell the radar processor, ‘you're going to have clutter here. Don't display it.’ You create a tiny blank spot [in the radar map] directly above the turbine,” Beloite told FoxNews.com.

In addition to the cost of the radar development, taxpayers are on the hook for more than $1 billion in subsidies for the construction of the Shepherd’s Flat wind farm, according to a 2010 memo from Larry Summers and two other White House economic advisors.

The fix for military radar doesn't work so well for weather forecasters, however.

“It's a lot easier to filter out interference for aviation,” Ed Ciardi, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Radar Operations Center in Norman, Okla., told FoxNews.com. “The real problem is when rain and the wind turbines are mixed together [on the radar map.] And it's all confusing… sometimes [forecasters] throw up their hands and say, ‘who knows?’”

When the situation is unclear, Ciardi said, “they'll play it safe and maybe extend a warning.”

Ciardi said there have been occasional false alarms due to wind farm interference, but the Weather Service hasn't failed to issue any storm warnings yet.

“We're more worried about the future ... we've seen quite a few proposals for wind farms around our radars. And we have been ... trying to convince them to stay a good distance away,” he said.

One strategy is to ask wind farm owners to turn off the propellers during storms. Another is to convince them to install devices that measure wind speeds and rainfall, so that there would no longer be much need for radar there.

“It all comes down to money and who's going to pay for it,” he noted.

Meanwhile, top radar scientists are working on developing a fix that works for weather radar.

“It's slow progress, and they say it's extremely difficult -- that they need more money and more time. The solution, I would say, is probably five years down the road," Ciardi said.

\

Asteroid 2005 YU55 near Earth November 8

Paul A. Heckert

, Astronomy Examiner

November 3, 2011 -

On November 8, 2011 the asteroid 2005 YU55 will come within about 325,000 kilometers (202,000 miles) of Earth's center. This distance is about 85% of the distance between Earth and Moon. Asteroid 2005 YU55 will be far enough from Earth that the close approach will not endanger Earth in any way. The close approach will however offer astronomers an excellent opportunity to study an asteroid at close range.
The orbit of asteroid 2005 YU55 crosses Earth's orbit regularly, which allows for the possibility of a collision on another orbit. Its orbit has been calculated accurately for the next 100 years and 2005 YU55 will not collide with Earth during that time. That is fortunate. According to an article in the November 2011 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine an impact with 2005 YU55 would release in the range of 100 times as much energy as a large hydrogen bomb - equivalent to several thousand tons of TNT.
Unlike most asteroids, which are irregularly shaped, 2005 YU55 is very nearly spherical. 2005 YU55 is about a quarter of a mile in diameter. Its surface is carbonaceous meaning it is covered with carbon and carbon containing compounds. Carbonaceous meteorites have been found to contain amino acids and other organic compounds. It would be interesting to know if 2005 YU55 were similar.
During its closest approach 2005 YU55 will pass through the great square of the constellation Pegasus. Despite its very close proximity to Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 will not be visible to the naked eye. Because it is fairly small and has a dark carbonaceous surface, 2005 YU55 will be about 50 to 100 times too faint with to see with the naked eye. As astronomers measure brightness, it will be magnitude 11.2. Amateur astronomers owning moderately large telescopes can see it. The November 2011 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine has a finding chart for 2005 YU55 on page 53. The asteroid will be distiguishable from faint stars in the field because it will move across the eyepiece field at a noticeable rate.

Tropical Cyclone 03A and Halloween Snow in US

Cantore Finds Jesus in the Thundersnow!