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Geology News
Meteorology Current Events

Scientists have been investigating theories regarding the greenhouse effect and global warming since at least the 19th century. This is a timeline showing some of the major landmarks in the field of climatology.

“In an average year, roughly 60 people are killed by tornadoes in the US each year. As of May 11 2008, 98 deaths had already been attributed to tornadoes. More than 900 tornadoes had been recorded by early May, a total that in most years is not reached until August.” Quoted from the NASA article.

“An international team of scientists has detected that some of the glow of Earth’s aurora is polarized, an unexpected state for such emissions.”

Images of Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis

North Carolina Map

There are news reports of tornadoes in North Carolina on Thursday evening and Friday morning. One person is reported killed and others injured. High winds caused significant damage to homes, cars, airport facilities and utility lines.

Beijing, China has a long-standing reputation for air that is thick with pollution and haze. In the past few years they claim to have spent about $17 billion trying to clean it up. A GEOTIMES article takes a look at the problem and the progress.

Tropical Storm Nargis formed into a cyclone on April 27th in the Bay of Bengal. It is now moving towards Myanmar (Burma) where it is expected to make landfall between May 2nd and May 3rd. Cyclone season in the North Indian Ocean runs from April through December. There are an average of five named storms per year with only two becoming full tropical cyclones.

Three tornadoes in southeastern Virginia caused massive damage and injured about 200 people on Monday. Governor Kaine declared a state of emergency for the areas hit by the storms.

This summer, a balloon will carry a spectrometer on a week-long flight from Sweden to Canada or Alaska. The trip will test the technology of the new equipment, which is planned to take future journeys around the North Pole and Mars. These projects will help scientists learn more about the atmospheres of Earth, Mars and perhaps eventually Venus.

Here’s a source of printable polar coordinate graph paper that can be used to plot things like joint and fracture orientations, current directions, fossil orientations or any type of data that is collected in degrees. These are .pdf files that you can easily download and print. Bookmark it for easy access when you need it.

This image shows the plume of haze curving over the water’s surface. Underneath the plume, much of the water appears blue-green, thanks to the Sea’s shallow northern depths. To the south the sea is a dark blue.

A research report at GEOTIMES explains that Earth’s temperatures were much warmer during the Cretaceous than they are today, with temperatures at the poles hovering near 10 degrees Celsius and equatorial temperatures at about 38 degrees. A slightly lower amount of cloud cover is thought to be responsible.

NASA and its partners have begun the most extensive field campaign ever to study the chemistry of the Arctic’s lower atmosphere.

The recent vigorous activity of Kilauea has been accompanied by an unusually large amount of sulfur dioxide emissions. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory warned on March 28 that sulfur dioxide concentrations in the air downwind from the volcano were likely to be hazardous, particularly to children or those with asthma or other breathing difficulties.

Photos of the Kilauea Eruption

There are several different types of lightning. Not all of it travels from clouds to the ground. This article explores the varieties of this bright phenomenon.

The weather front that caused heavy flooding in the central United States over the past few days is moving east. The geographic distribution of streams in flood can be seen at the USGS stream monitoring website. One of their maps from Thursday morning is posted below. Each dot is a gaging station. The color of the dot represents stream flow compared to percentiles of historical daily stream flow for that day of the year. Stream shown as black dots are very high. Get a real-time map at USGS WaterWatch.

Very heavy rains have triggered flooding in the central United States, leaving at least 13 dead. Some USGS Gaging Stations in Illinois - where one foot of rain fell - show stage increases of 20 feet or more.

The extreme floods that hit the UK during 2007 were of unusual extent and severity. The UK’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology has issued a report stating that they were singular weather events and unrelated to climate change. We link to a webpage with a summary where you can choose to download the full pdf report.

A strong storm, thought to be a tornado, hit downtown Atlanta last night at about 9:40 injuring at least two dozen people and causing significant damage.

NASA Image

Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in northern and central South America. Cooler-than-normal ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific have triggered La Niña conditions, which are thought to be causing the rain.

With the onset of spring comes the breathtaking display of the Northern Lights. What many people do not realize is that the fantastic light displays are caused by intense geomagnetic storms. NASA has deployed some satellites to study this mysterious phenomenon.

Here’s a site where you can download and print free graph papers in a variety of formats. Square grid paper, polar coordinate paper, isometric paper and axis graph paper.

The Ocean Motion website provides resources for inquiry-based learning about the oceans by students at the high school grade-level. It features lots of ocean current data, satellite images, weather/climate data and other information that students might find engaging.

Brent Christner, an LSU professor of biological sciences and others have studied precipitation from global locations and determined that the most active ice nuclei are biological in origin.

A strong storm passed through Talladega and Calhoun Counties, Alabama. Strong winds and golf-ball size hail knocked out power and caused significant damage.

The Google Earth Blog has a post that summarizes some of the data that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has made available for use in Google Earth. They also provide links to important data locations at NOAA and to previous Google Earth Blog posts that describe available data.

“A major wintertime tornado outbreak ripped through Arkansas, western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, northern Alabama, and western Kentucky on February 5, 2008.” Earth Observatory has a precipitation map for the storms and details on why they happened.

Dozens of people have been killed by tornadoes that ripped across Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Alabama late Tuesday.

“Researchers now believe that some of the most intense winter storm activity over parts of the United States may be set in motion from changes in the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have an influence on the most intense U.S. winter storms.” Quoted from the NASA source.

MapResources Image

High winds sweeping down the length of Lake Erie produced a storm surge that was over ten feet high in some areas. Winds and cold caused many other problems

If you have an interest in atmospheric phenomena, the Atmospheric Optics website has the first ever image of a Kern Arc. It is rarely observed and Marko Mikkilä captured a photo near Sotkamo, Finland on November 17th.

NASA Image

“La Niña episodes are typically strongest in January. Cool, wet conditions in the Northwest, frigid weather on the Plains, and record dry conditions in the Southeast, all signs that La Niña is in full swing.”

“The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have jointly achieved a new milestone in the almost 20-year history of scientific ballooning in Antarctica, by launching and operating three long-duration sub-orbital flights within a single Southern-Hemisphere summer. … they are using high balloons to investigate the nature of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and searching for anti-matter in air currents that circle Antarctica.” Quoted from the NSF source.

Weather experts in Britain predict that world temperatures will cool slightly in 2008 but remain among the ten hottest in the US. A strong La Nina is part of the reason.

NOAA Image

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center forecasts that the drought in the southeastern United States will continue, with odds favoring an expansion of drought conditions into Florida and the eastern Gulf Coast. Some areas have a 15 inch rain deficit for the year.

Earth Observatory has a cumulative rainfall map for the storms that recently drenched Washington and Oregon. It shows over 150 millimeters of precipitation between November 28 and December 4. The Seattle area received over 100 millimeters of rain.

The “Astronomy Picture of the Day” for November 25 is an iridescent cloud. This is a rare phenomenon in which water droplets diffract sunlight in a way that causes a display of color in the sky.

The tiny particles that make up smoke are known as “aerosols”. The image here is part of a small collection posted at the Earth Observatory website. They show the distribution of aerosols produced by the recent California wildfires. Pink areas are where smoke particles are most abundant, grading to lesser abundance in sequence from pink to yellow to green to blue.

Data from ESA’s Envisat satellite shows that the Ozone Hole over Antarctica is 30 percent smaller than the record size measured in 2006. Researchers say that this is not a long term trend. Instead it is caused by natural variations in temperature and atmospheric dynamics.

NOAA Image

NOAA has a website called “Tides Online” where you can view graphs of near real-time tide information. Shown here are recent graphs of observed/predicted tide water levels and a graph of wind speed and direction over time. Information availability varies by station but I saw water level, wind speed, wind direction, air pressure, air temperature, water temperature and other types of data in the chart.

This information would be valuable if you are going to the coast but it is also of enormous value for student investigation. For example… the charts here show windspeed and water levels for Bermuda. Open a new browser window and check out the water level patterns for the Texas coast. Ask students to explain the difference.

NASA Image

Between August 10th and 20th Tropical Storm Erin tracked over Texas and Oklahoma dropping significant amounts of rain and producing heavy flooding. This image shows rainfall totals along the storm’s track. Highest rainfall totals centered over Oklahoma where between 8 and 10 inches fell.