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NASA's Global Hawk Completes First Science Flight Over the Pacific
04.08.10
 
Global%20Hawk%20aircraft%20in%20flight
The Global Hawk can fly autonomously to altitudes above 60,000 feet -- roughly twice as high as a commercial airliner -- and as far as 11,000 nautical miles. Operators pre-program a flight path, and then the plane flies itself for as long as 30 hours. Credit: NASA/Dryden/Carla Thomas


map%20showing%20Global%20Hawk%20flight%20path
On its April 7 flight, the Global Hawk flew approximately 4,500 nautical miles along a flight path that took it to 150.3 degrees West longitude and 54.6 degrees North latitude, just south of Alaska's Kodiak Island. The flight lasted 14.1 hours and flew up to 60,900 feet in altitude. Credit: NASA/Dryden
 
NASA pilots and flight engineers, together with colleagues from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have successfully completed the first science flight of the Global Hawk unpiloted aircraft system over the Pacific Ocean. The flight was the first of five scheduled for this month's Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) mission to study atmospheric science over the Pacific and Arctic oceans.

The Global Hawk is a robotic plane that can fly autonomously to altitudes above 60,000 feet (18.3 kilometers) -- roughly twice as high as a commercial airliner -- and as far as 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 kilometers) -- half the circumference of Earth. Operators pre-program a flight path, and then the plane flies itself for as long as 30 hours, staying in contact through satellite and line-of-site communications to the ground control station at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California's Mojave Desert.

"The Global Hawk is a revolutionary aircraft for science because of its enormous range and endurance," said Paul Newman, co-mission scientist for GloPac and an atmospheric scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "No other science platform provides this much range and time to sample rapidly evolving atmospheric phenomena. This mission is our first opportunity to demonstrate the unique capabilities of this plane, while gathering atmospheric data in a region that is poorly sampled."

GloPac researchers will directly measure and sample greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting substances, aerosols, and constituents of air quality in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.

In yesterday's flight, the plane flew approximately 4,500 nautical miles (8,300 kilometers) along a flight path that took it from Dryden to 150.3 degrees West longitude and 54.6 degrees North latitude, just south of Alaska's Kodiak Island. The flight lasted 14.1 hours and flew up to 60,900 feet (18.6 kilometers) in altitude.

Reaching Higher into the Atmosphere and Staying There

"The Global Hawk is a fantastic platform because it gives us expanded access to the atmosphere beyond what we have with piloted aircraft," said David Fahey, co-mission scientist and a research physicist at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. "We can go to regions we couldn't reach or go to previously explored regions and study them for extended periods that are impossible with conventional planes."

The plane carries 11 instruments to sample the chemical composition of Earth�s two lowest atmospheric layers, to profile the dynamics and meteorology of both, and to observe the distribution of clouds and aerosol particles. Project scientists expect to take observations from the equator to the Arctic Circle, and west of Hawaii.

(Select Pic for more information)
screen%20capture%20of%20the%20GloPac%20interactive The Global Hawk carries 11 instruments to sample the chemical composition of Earth�s two lowest atmospheric layers, to profile the dynamics and meteorology of both, and to observe the distribution of clouds and aerosol particles. View this interactive feature to learn more about each of the aircraft's instruments. Credit: NASA/Scott Hanger

The timing of GloPac flights should allow scientists to observe the breakup of the polar vortex, a large-scale cyclone that dominates winter weather patterns around the Arctic and is particularly important for understanding ozone depletion in the Northern Hemisphere. Researchers appear to have gathered some measurements from the polar vortex during yesterday's flight.

Scientists also expect to gather data between 45,000 and 65,000 feet, where many greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances are destroyed. They will measure dust, smoke and pollution that cross the Pacific from Asia and Siberia and affect U.S. air quality.

Several instruments will measure aerosols, which play an important but incompletely understood role in Earth's radiation budget. Some aerosols absorb warming sunlight, while others reflect it back to space and cool the planet. High-altitude particles can serve as nuclei for the formation of clouds.

Command and Control

inside%20the%20Global%20Hawk%20Operations%20Center The Global Hawk Operations Center (GHOC) at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center serves as the cockpit of the Global Hawk. The pilots, who monitor and control the aircraft from the GHOC, have displays of all aircraft parameters and can override the autonomous flight control system to make course corrections and altitude adjustments. Credit: NASA/Dryden/Tony Landis
The Global Hawk Operations Center (GHOC) at Dryden serves as the cockpit of the Global Hawk, where ground-based flight computers and communications equipment play integral parts in the system. Pilots design the flight path and then upload the route into the aircraft�s computer.

The aircraft can then take off, fly its mission, and land without any additional pilot or scientist intervention. Though the plane is designed to fly on its own, pilots can change course or altitude based on the atmospheric phenomena ahead. Researchers also have the ability to command and control their instruments from the ground.

GloPac will make several flights directly under the path of NASA�s Aura satellite and other "A-train� Earth-observing satellites, "allowing us to calibrate and confirm what we see from space," Newman said. GloPac is being conducted in conjunction with NASA�s Aura Validation Experiment (AVE).

During the first science flight, the Global Hawk flew under the Cloud-Aerosol LIDAR and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), a joint project of NASA and France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales.

Built by Northrop Grumman Corp., Rancho Bernardo, Calif., NASA's Global Hawk aircraft were originally flown in the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Two test models were transferred from the U.S. Air Force to NASA in 2007, and a third was transferred in 2009. Northrop Grumman and NASA Dryden signed a Space Act Agreement to re-fit and maintain three Global Hawks for use in high-altitude, long-duration Earth science missions.

The GloPac mission includes more than 130 researchers and technicians from Goddard; NASA�s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; NASA�s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; and Dryden, as well as NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory; Northrup Grumman; the University of California, Santa Cruz; Droplet Measurement Technologies of Boulder, Colo.; and the University of Denver.
 
 ______________________________________________________________________
GLOPAC Mission

The flights are designed to address various science objectives:

1. validation and scientific collaboration with NASA earth-monitoring satellite missions, principally the Aura satellite,

2. observations of stratospheric trace gases in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from the mid-latitudes into the tropics,

3. sampling of polar stratospheric air and the break-up fragments of the air that move into the mid-latitudes,

4. measurements of dust, smoke, and pollution that cross the Pacific from Asia and Siberia,

5. measurements of streamers of moist air from the central tropical Pacific that move onto the West Coast of the United States (atmospheric rivers).

 
 
 
 
 
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NASA Demonstrates Ocean-Powered Underwater Vehicle
04.05.10
 
The%20SOLO-TREC%20autonomous%20underwater%20vehicle%20is%20deployed%20off%20the%20coast%20of%20Hawaii%20on%20an%20extended%20ocean%20endurance%20test,%20Nov.%2030,%202009.
The SOLO-TREC autonomous underwater vehicle is deployed off the coast of Hawaii on an ocean endurance test, Nov. 30, 2009. Image credit: NASA/JPL/U.S. Navy/Scripps Institution of Oceanography

PASADENA, Calif. � NASA, U.S. Navy and university researchers have successfully demonstrated the first robotic underwater vehicle to be powered entirely by natural, renewable, ocean thermal energy.

The Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal RECharging (SOLO-TREC) autonomous underwater vehicle uses a novel thermal recharging engine powered by the natural temperature differences found at different ocean depths. Scalable for use on most robotic oceanographic vehicles, this technology breakthrough could usher in a new generation of autonomous underwater vehicles capable of virtually indefinite ocean monitoring for climate and marine animal studies, exploration and surveillance.

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, completed the first three months of an ocean endurance test of the prototype vehicle off the coast of Hawaii in March.

"People have long dreamed of a machine that produces more energy than it consumes and runs indefinitely," said Jack Jones, a JPL principal engineer and SOLO-TREC co-principal investigator. "While not a true perpetual motion machine, since we actually consume some environmental energy, the prototype system demonstrated by JPL and its partners can continuously monitor the ocean without a limit on its lifetime imposed by energy supply."

"Most of Earth is covered by ocean, yet we know less about the ocean than we do about the surface of some planets," said Yi Chao, a JPL principal scientist and SOLO-TREC principal investigator. "This technology to harvest energy from the ocean will have huge implications for how we can measure and monitor the ocean and its influence on climate."

Plot%20map%20of%20the%20path%20of%20the%20SOLO-TREC%20autonomous%20underwater%20vehicle%20since%20its%20deployment%20south%20of%20Hawaii%20on%20Nov.%2030,%202009.
Plot map of the path of the SOLO-TREC autonomous underwater vehicle since its deployment south of Hawaii on Nov. 30, 2009. Image credit:NASA/JPL/SIO/NOAA/U.S. Navy/NGA/GEBCO/Google

SOLO-TREC draws upon the ocean's thermal energy as it alternately encounters warm surface water and colder conditions at depth. Key to its operation are the carefully selected waxy substances known as phase-change materials that are contained in 10 external tubes, which house enough material to allow net power generation. As the float surfaces and encounters warm temperatures, the material melts and expands; when it dives and enters cooler waters, the material solidifies and contracts. The expansion of the wax pressurizes oil stored inside the float. This oil periodically drives a hydraulic motor that generates electricity and recharges the vehicle's batteries. Energy from the rechargeable batteries powers the float's hydraulic system, which changes the float's volume (and hence buoyancy), allowing it to move vertically.

So far, SOLO-TREC has completed more than 300 dives from the ocean surface to a depth of 500 meters (1,640 feet). Its thermal recharging engine produced about 1.7 watt-hours, or 6,100 joules, of energy per dive, enough electricity to operate the vehicle's science instruments, GPS receiver, communications device and buoyancy-control pump.

The SOLO-TREC demonstration culminates five years of research and technology development by JPL and Scripps and is funded by the Office of Naval Research. JPL developed the thermal recharging engine, building on the buoyancy engine developed for the Slocum glider by Teledyne Webb Research, Falmouth, Mass. Scripps redesigned the SOLO profiling float and performed the integration. The 84-kilogram (183-pound) SOLO-TREC prototype was tested and deployed by the JPL/Scripps team on Nov. 30, 2009, about 161 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Honolulu.

The performance of underwater robotic vehicles has traditionally been limited by power considerations. "Energy harvesting from the natural environment opens the door for a tremendous expansion in the use of autonomous systems for naval and civilian applications," said Thomas Swean, the Office of Naval Research program manager for SOLO-TREC. "This is particularly true for systems that spend most of their time submerged below the sea surface, where mechanisms for converting energy are not as readily available. The JPL/Scripps concept is unique in that its stored energy gets renewed naturally as the platform traverses ocean thermal gradients, so, in theory, the system has unlimited range and endurance. This is a very significant advance."

SOLO-TREC is now in an extended mission. The JPL/Scripps team plans to operate SOLO-TREC for many more months, if not years. "The present thermal engine shows the great promise in harvesting ocean thermal energy," said Russ Davis, a Scripps oceanographer. "With further engineering refinement, SOLO-TREC has the potential to augment ocean monitoring currently done by the 3,200 battery-powered Argo floats." The international Argo array, supported in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, measures temperature, salinity and velocity across the world's ocean. NASA and the U.S. Navy also plan to apply this thermal recharging technology to the next generation of submersible vehicles.

 
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NASA Sensors Providing Rapid Estimates of Iceland Volcano Emissions
04.07.10
 
False-color%20short-wavelength%20infrared%20image%20of%20Icelands%20Eyjafjallajokull%20volcano False-color short-wavelength infrared image of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano from data obtained by NASA's EO-1 Hyperion satellite on March 24, 2010. image credit: NASA/JPL/EO-1 Mission/GSFC/Ashley Davies

A NASA research team is using the latest advances in satellite artificial intelligence to speed up estimates of the heat and volume of lava escaping from an erupting volcano in Iceland.

On March 20, 2010, Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano (pronounced "AYA-feeyapla-yurkul,") awakened for the first time in 120 years, spewing still-active lava fountains and flows. That day, a NASA "sensor web" -- a network of sensors on the ground and aboard NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite, alerted researchers to this new volcanic "hot spot." The eruption was detected by autonomous "sciencecraft" software aboard the satellite, which is known as EO-1.

Sciencecraft software enables the spacecraft to analyze science data onboard to detect scientific events and respond by sending alerts, producing scientific products and/or re-imaging the event.

The software is typically able to notify researchers on the ground within 90 minutes of detecting events, and then rapidly sets up the satellite to observe them. In the case of the Iceland volcanic event, EO-1 was able to take advantage of recently uploaded "smart" software that allows the spacecraft to react quickly to an event and to rapidly downlink the data for processing by ground personnel in less than 24 hours. That process used to take three weeks for researchers working manually.

The artificial intelligence software directed EO-1's Hyperion and Advanced Land Imager instruments to target the volcano on its next passes over Iceland, which occurred on March 24, 29 and 30. After image data were transmitted to a ground station at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., computers automatically analyzed them and created maps and estimates of heat loss and eruption flow rate.

"Use of autonomous systems in this way represents a new way of doing science, where spacecraft can think for themselves and react to dynamic and often transient events," explained Ashley Davies, lead scientist for NASA's New Millennium Program-Space Technology 6 Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment at JPL.

"This autonomy technology enables spacecraft to rapidly inform the ground of significant events, like the volcanic eruption," said Steve Chien, principal investigator for the Autonomous Sciencecraft at JPL. "This same technology has been used to track fires, flooding and other natural hazards."

"This sensorweb technology enables rapid retasking of the EO-1 spacecraft, making it easier to track breaking phenomena such as the Iceland volcano," added Daniel Mandl, EO-1 spacecraft mission manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Goddard manages the EO-1 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Less than 24 hours after the satellite's first observation, the JPL team confirmed the volcano was emitting more than one billion watts of energy -- enough to power 40,000 passenger cars at the same time -- and discharging more than six tons of lava per second.

The fully automated process accelerated NASA's distribution of images to volcanologists studying the eruption. Rapid calculations of lava volume (known as the effusion rate) and location can help determine the likely direction of lava flows, while giving emergency managers advance warning to plan and deploy resources, and carry out informed evacuations.

Davies believes he and other researchers can use the "onboard autonomy" to achieve a greater and faster return rate of new Earth and planetary science data, while offering potentially life-saving benefits through rapid detection of natural events.

"There is concern that this eruption might precede another larger eruption at the Katla volcano nearby," said Davies. "If it does, we will be poised to provide imaging data of activity as the eruption evolves."

 
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Solar 'Conveyor Belt' Runs at Record-High Speeds
03.12.10
 
Diagram of the distribution of the sun's magnetic field over three 11-year solar cycles. Yellow represents magnetic field directed out of the sun. Blue represents magnetic field into the sun. Sunspots themselves produce the "Butterfly" pattern at low latitudes. The sun's meridional flow from the equator to the poles in each hemisphere carries magnetic remains of the sunspots to the poles. This produces the streaks seen at higher latitudes and reverses the magnetic polarity of the sun's poles every 11 years. Image credit: NASA/MSFC/David Hathaway

Solar%20flares
 
 
Solar physicist David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Space flight Center in Huntsville, AL and graduate student Lisa Rightmire of the University of Memphis in Tennessee have been monitoring the sun using the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). They observe a massive circulating current of fire (hot plasma) within the sun operating at a faster pace as reported in the March 12th issue of Science.

The current of fire is a conveyor belt-like system called the Meridional Flow which rises to the surface at the sun's equator and spreads out toward the poles where it sinks back into the sun. "Normally it reaches peak speeds of about 20 mph," says Hathaway. "However, in 2004 the speed increased to nearly 30 mph and has remained that fast since."

The faster pace is a revelation because it occurred during the deepest solar minimum in almost 100 years and indications that the next solar cycle will be a weak one. This contradicts some theories that say a fast pace results in increased sunspot production. But it agrees with others that say a fast pace results in decreased sunspot production.

The faster rate of currents on the sun and the expected weaker solar cycle have affects for those of us here on Earth. One affect is the temperature increase of the Earth could slow down, there would be fewer auroras, and to the extent that we depend on satellites, GPS, and cell phones there should be less disruption in service.
 
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Innovative NASA-JAXA Partnership Benefits Global Earth Science
 
WASHINGTON -- In a unique collaboration between national space agencies, the United States and Japan began combining elements of their satellite resources on Monday to increase a critical type of Earth observation data. The partnership will more than double the quantity of this data that is used to explore earthquake hazards, forest declines, and changing water resources in the Americas.

This new partnership between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA, uses NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to download observations over North and South America taken by instruments on JAXA's Advanced Land Observing Satellite, or ALOS. By combining NASA and JAXA data-relay satellite resources, coverage of North and South America nearly doubles. Observations will be made about twice as often.

"This is a great example of the value to be gained through international collaboration between the world's Earth-observing nations," said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "By working together and sharing satellite resources like this, we can produce more data more rapidly and cost-effectively than if each of us went it alone."

The Phased Array type L-band synthetic aperture radar, known as PALSAR, is one of the instruments aboard ALOS. It precisely measures the distance to Earth's surface under all weather conditions during day and night. Measurements from this instrument are used for detecting changes in the ground surface associated with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides; mapping forest cover and flooding in the tropics that affect the carbon balance in land-based ecosystems; and determining the speed at which ice sheets and glaciers move, which contributes to sea-level rise.

NASA does not currently have this type of instrument in orbit, but a NASA synthetic aperture radar mission is planned to launch later this decade. NASA has been obtaining these data from JAXA and other international space agencies for use by U.S. scientists.

Under the new agreement with JAXA, NASA will have access to all the ALOS data acquired over the Americas and can make it available to scientists affiliated with U.S. government agencies for peaceful scientific purposes. The Alaska Satellite Facility, a NASA data center located at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, will process and distribute the PALSAR data.

"The expanded ALOS data flow will significantly improve our scientists' ability to monitor regions at risk to earthquake hazards, such as Haiti and Chile," said Craig Dobson, natural hazards program manager in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters. "Now we will be able to see very small changes in surface elevation associated with the build-up and release of strain in seismic zones over virtually the entire area of the Americas, with measurements made as often as every 46 days. Scientists also will be able to monitor seasonal changes in groundwater resources."

NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System consists of eight communication satellites stationed in geosynchronous orbits. With ground stations at the White Sands Complex near Las Cruces, N.M., and at Guam, the system can provide complete coverage of user spacecraft. The system supports communications with the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and many other NASA missions.

ALOS data began to be distributed to users by the Alaska Satellite Facility today under the new agreement. The partnership is the result of development and testing work accomplished by a joint NASA-JAXA team that was started three years ago.

This new NASA-JAXA agreement continues a long and productive partnership between the nations in satellite observation of Earth. Japanese instruments are flying on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites, and NASA sensors have flown on previous Japanese Earth-observation missions. The NASA-JAXA Global Precipitation Mission, to be launched in 2013, will include both NASA- and JAXA-supplied sensors on a NASA satellite launched on a JAXA rocket. The mission will provide the first frequent, accurate measurements of rainfall over the entire globe for use by scientists and weather forecasters
 
 
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Flash: NASA's Cassini Sees Lightning on Saturn
04.14.10
 
First%20Lightning%20Flashes%20on%20Saturn
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the first lightning flashes on Saturn when it captured these images on August 17, 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Lightning%20Flashing%20on%20Saturn
This Cassini movie -- the first of its kind -- shows lightning on Saturn's night side flashing in a cloud that is illuminated by light from Saturn's rings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/University of Iowa

 

PASADENA, Calif. � NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured images of lightning on Saturn. The images have allowed scientists to create the first movie showing lightning flashing on another planet.

After waiting years for Saturn to dim enough for the spacecraft's cameras to detect bursts of light, scientists were able to create the movie, complete with a soundtrack that features the crackle of radio waves emitted when lightning bolts struck.

"This is the first time we have the visible lightning flash together with the radio data," said Georg Fischer, a radio and plasma wave science team associate based at the Space Research Institute in Graz, Austria. "Now that the radio and visible light data line up, we know for sure we are seeing powerful lightning storms."

The movie and radio data suggest extremely powerful storms with lightning that flashes as brightly as the brightest super-bolts on Earth, according to Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging science subsystem team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "What's interesting is that the storms are as powerful -- or even more powerful -- at Saturn as on Earth," said Ingersoll. "But they occur much less frequently, with usually only one happening on the planet at any given time, though it can last for months."

The first images of the lightning were captured in August 2009, during a storm that churned from January to October 2009 and lasted longer than any other observed lightning storm in the solar system. Results are described in an article accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

To make a video, scientists needed more pictures with brighter lightning and strong radio signals. Data were collected during a shorter subsequent storm, which occurred from November through mid-December 2009. The frames in the video were obtained over 16 minutes on Nov. 30, 2009. The flashes lasted less than one second. The images show a cloud as long as 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) across and regions illuminated by lightning flashes about 300 kilometers (190 miles) in diameter. Scientists use the width of the flashes to gauge the depth of the lightning below the cloud tops.

When lightning strikes on Earth and on Saturn, it emits radio waves at a frequency that can cause static on an AM radio. The sounds in the video approximate that static sound, based on Saturn electrostatic discharge signals detected by Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument.

Cassini, launched in 1997, and NASA's Voyager mission, launched in 1977, had previously captured radio emissions from storms on Saturn. A belt around the planet where Cassini has detected radio emissions and bright, convective clouds earned the nickname "storm alley." Cassini's cameras, however, had been unable to get pictures of lightning flashing.

Since Cassini's arrival at Saturn in 2004, it has been difficult to see the lightning because the planet is very bright and reflective. Sunlight shining off Saturn's enormous rings made even the night side of Saturn brighter than a full-moon night on Earth. Equinox, the period around August 2009 when the sun shone directly over the planet's equator, finally brought the needed darkness. During equinox, the sun lit the rings edge-on only and left the bulk of the rings in shadow.

Seeing lightning was another highlight of the equinox period, which already enabled scientists to see clumps in the rings as high as the Rocky Mountains.

"The visible-light images tell us a lot about the lightning," said Ulyana Dyudina, a Cassini imaging team associate based at Caltech, who was the first to see the flashes. "Now we can begin to measure how powerful these storms are, where they form in the cloud layer and how the optical intensity relates to the total energy of the thunderstorms."
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2010 at 7:58pm
For  Fun  Golf
 a little out of the way but the scenery is worth it.
(Think I will need a mulligan or 2)
 
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Glacier in Peru Melts Down and Break Off into a Lake Causing Tsunami and Mudslides in Central Andes [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

A glacier broke off in the central Peruvian Andes and fell into a lake causing what scientists said was a 75-foot tsunami, killing three people, causing mudslides and the destruction of a water processing reservoir used to supply the surrounding towns.

The glacier that broke off was part of the Huancan snow peak , located in the region of Ancash, close to the town of Carhuaz and south of the Huascaran, the highest snow peak of Peru and one of the highest in the world. They are part of the world famous Cordillera Blanca mountain range.

Map by Peruanista. Source: andix.com and allthemountains.com
 
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Originally posted by Mahshadin Mahshadin wrote:

For  Fun  Golf
 a little out of the way but the scenery is worth it.
(Think I will need a mulligan or 2)
 
 
Heh, I nailed one and almost got a stable orbit around Helene. It went around six times before it degraded and came back down.
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"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."   G Orwell
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A must see Vid (Suns Surface)
________________________________________________
 CME and Coronal Loops in Action (April 9, 2010)
 
 
 or
 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 16 2010 at 7:25pm
 3 days ago
 
 

The largest eruptive prominence observed in years blasted into space (April 13, 2010) and SOHO was lucky enough to have caught a key moment of it. As observed in extreme UV light, the plasma cloud was caught about mid-step in its liftoff above the Sun's surface. (Ground-based observers says the eruption took about two hours.) It was not obvious what triggered the breakaway, but it may have been associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME). Prominences are cooler clouds of gases that hover above the Sun, tethered there by magnetic forces. Occasionally, as seen here, they break free and blast into space.

The bright edge of the expanding cloud is distinctly displayed in the LASCO C2 field of view in which the Sun (represented by the white circle) is blocked by a central disk. The video clip shows it dispersing over about an eight hours. The expanding prominence is the bright stuff in the position of the "filament" of the broader and fainter CME "light bulb."

 
quick video of event
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 18 2010 at 12:28pm
Originally posted by Turboguy Turboguy wrote:

Originally posted by Mahshadin Mahshadin wrote:

For  Fun  Golf
 a little out of the way but the scenery is worth it.
(Think I will need a mulligan or 2)
 
 
Heh, I nailed one and almost got a stable orbit around Helene. It went around six times before it degraded and came back down.
________________________________________ 
 
Hey TG, multiple orbits before landing back on surface, Nice. My attempts to gauge the gravity have not been good (Out Of Bounds) LOLLOL. I I didnt find the reset button up top until several times through (Staring at The Pictures).   (FOUR)
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GOES-13 is America’s New GOES-EAST Satellite
04.16.10
 
artists%20concept%20of%20GOES-13%20orbiting%20the%20earth › 
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite known as GOES-13 became the official GOES-EAST satellite on April 14, 2010. GOES-13 was moved from on-orbit storage and into active duty. It is perched 22,300 miles above the equator to spot potentially life-threatening weather, including tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

"Just in time for the 2010 hurricane season, NOAA will have one of its newest, technologically advanced satellites closely tracking these storms – from when they develop to when they dissipate," said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Satellite and Information Service in Silver Spring, Md.

NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., procures and manages the development and launch of the GOES series of satellites for NOAA on a cost-reimbursable basis. NASA's GOES Project also creates some of the GOES satellite images and GOES satellite imagery animations. NOAA manages the operational environmental satellite program and establishes requirements, provides all funding and distributes environmental satellite data for the United States.

"It is exciting to think that we are now putting into service the best satellites this country has to offer," said Andre' Dress, GOES N-P NASA Deputy Project Manager, at Goddard. "We are really looking forward to see the increase in performance over the older satellites and the improvements in weather prediction."

There are two GOES satellites that cover weather conditions in the U.S. and they are positioned over the eastern and western U.S. The satellite in the GOES EAST position covers weather on the eastern side of the continental U.S., including the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The GOES WEST position covers the western half of the U.S. and the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

GOES-13 has now replaced GOES-12, which NOAA is shifting in orbit to provide coverage for South America, as part of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems, or GEOSS. GOES-11 continues to occupy the GOES-WEST position.

Initially known as the GOES-N satellite, it was renamed GOES-13 when it achieved geosynchronous orbit. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. at 6:11 p.m. EDT on May 24, 2006 aboard a Boeing Delta IV rocket.

GOES-13 is the first of three new NOAA geostationary environmental satellites. The other two in the new series are GOES-14, launched in June 2009 and now in orbital storage, and GOES-15, launched on March 4, 2010, and undergoing tests before completing its "check-out" phase, scheduled to be complete in August 2010.

Since the first GOES launch in 1974, these satellites have supplied the data critical for fast, accurate weather forecasts and warnings. The newer GOES series of satellites help relay distress signals from emergency beacons, and are equipped to monitor solar activity, which can impact billions of dollars worth of government and commercial assets in space and on the ground.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mary008 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 18 2010 at 1:45pm
hi Mahs... great info  :) 
.
 
Don't miss the Video from the address Mahs put up above...
 
GOES-N: Mission, Spacecraft, Science and Technology Webcast
 
 
 
 
 
NASA%20Commentator%20Bruce%20BuckinghamHost
Bruce Buckingham
NASA News Chief
The GOES-N webcast took place on August 15. Click on the link below to learn more about the mission. GOES-N, first in a series of three GOES N-P, next-generation satellites, will aid in activities from severe storm warnings, advances in science and providing data to support organizations that work to save lives worldwide.

+ View entire Webcast in Windows Media.
Or use links below to view Closed Captioned segments of the program in Real Player.

Our Grand Prize Winner is:
• Stuart from Charlottesville

The winner receives a NASA Direct GOES-N prize pack!
 
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3-day Solar-Geophysical Forecast issued Apr 19 22:00 UTC

Solar Activity Forecast: Solar activity is expected to remain very low for the next three days (20-22 April).

Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to remain quiet for day one (20 April). Quiet to unsettled levels with isolated active periods are expected for days two and three (21-22 April). Activity is expected due to possible effects from a weak CME observed on 15 April and two coronal hole high speed streams rotating into a geoeffective position.

 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 19 2010 at 5:18pm
Press Release 10-061
Volunteers Scrutinize "Ten Most Wanted" Plants for Clues to Climate Change

Project Budburst citizen scientists find that plants are blooming unusually early

 

April 19, 2010

Students, gardeners, retirees and other volunteers across the nation who are taking part in a nationwide initiative--Project BudBurst--are finding hints that certain plants are blooming unusually early, perhaps as a result of climate change.

The citizen scientists are recording the timing of flowers and foliage, amassing thousands of observations from across the nation to give researchers a detailed picture of our changing climate.

The project, which started as a pilot program in 2007, now focuses on a list of the "10 most wanted species"--flowers and trees such as the common lilac, red maple and Virginia bluebell.

Such widely distributed plants can provide important early signs of the impact of warming temperatures on the environment, according to the scientists who designed the project.

"Project BudBurst empowers people living anywhere in the country to make a contribution that will lead to better understanding of our environment," said Project BudBurst director Sandra Henderson of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Office of Education and Outreach. "This is needed data to help scientists who are studying the impacts of climate change."

Project BudBurst is operated by UCAR and the Chicago Botanic Garden, and is a partner in the USA National Phenology Network.

Funding comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF), along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, National Ecological Observatory Network, NASA and the National Geographic Education Foundation.

"While these observations may reveal impacts of climate change in local areas, scientists need data from many more locations," said Elizabeth Blood, program director in NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences, which funds Project BudBurst. "Scientists also need more years of data to understand changes over larger regional scales, as well as distinguish the effects of long-term trends in climate from natural year-to-year variations."

In Chicago, volunteers who have observed 15 kinds of plants since 2007 have found that seven of them are flowering earlier now than at any time in more than 50 years of observations by botanists.

"We will need volunteers to make observations for a number of years before we can fill in an accurate picture about the impact of climate change on our landscape," Henderson says.

Volunteers say they enjoy making the observations.

"Where there are curious people, it doesn't take long to bring together a group to go scrutinizing particular plants and trees, discovering the earliest stages of cones or bud formation, for instance, then following the later development," said Sue Prindle, who lives in a retirement community in Silver Spring, Md. "It has been rewarding and fun."

Overall, participants across the country have made more than 10,000 observations since 2007, establishing a baseline for the timing of key plant events.

"These findings are important as scientists analyze the impacts of global warming on our natural world," says Kayri Havens, a senior scientist with the Chicago Botanic Garden and co-manager of Project BudBurst.

Each participant in Project BudBurst selects one or more plants to observe.

The Project BudBurst Web site encourages volunteers to focus on the 10 most wanted species, but it also welcomes observations of other plants.

Volunteers begin checking their plants at least a week prior to the average date of budburst--the point when the buds have opened and leaves are visible.

After budburst, participants continue to observe the tree or flower for later events, such as seed dispersal and autumn leaf dropoff. Participants submit their records of these phenophases online.

Anyone can view the results as maps of the phenophases across the United States.

The science of phenology, or tracking cyclic behavior among plants and animals, has a distinguished history.

For centuries farmers, naturalists, geographers and others have kept careful records of the phenology patterns of plants and animals.

Farmers have long used their phenology knowledge to predict the best time for planting and harvesting crops, when to start expecting problems with insect pests, and other seasonal events.

The effects of climate change on numerous plant and animal species throughout the world have been observed and reported in the scientific literature.

Some plants respond to warmer temperatures by extending their growing seasons. Others shift their ranges toward the poles or to higher elevations.

At the same time, many insects breed and disperse based on regular cycles of sunlight rather than temperature.

This can cause a mismatch between the behavior of pollinating insects, such as bees, and flowers that bloom earlier than the insects expect. Such asynchronous behavior has already been noted across many parts of the world.

-NSF-

 
 
For information on Participation
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 19 2010 at 8:31pm
CONTRACT RELEASE : C10-026
 
 
NASA Extends Hubble Space Telescope Science Operations Contract
 
 
WASHINGTON -- NASA has exercised an option to extend the period of performance of the contract with the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy for the Hubble Space Telescope Science Operations Center located at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

This action will extend the period of performance for 36 months through April 30, 2013, and it has a total estimated value of approximately $113 million.

The contractor will continue to be responsible for providing the products and services required to execute the science program; process, archive and distribute science data; maintain and calibrate the telescope's onboard instruments; maintain science operations' ground systems; administer grants, perform public and educational outreach; and conduct astronomical research during the remaining years of the Hubble science mission.

For more information about the Space Telescope Science Institute, visit:

http://www.stsci.edu

 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 20 2010 at 9:38am
Originally posted by andyjor andyjor wrote:

WinkOn the record....about the temperature record. NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt talks about the Earth's surface temperature record and the data behind it. Full story
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andyjor, I couldnt get your link to work
 
Did you mean this interview:
 
________________________________________  
 

Climatologist Gavin Schmidt Discusses the Surface Temperature Record

Jan. 21, 2010

Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, studies why and how Earth's climate varies over time. He offered some context on the annual surface temperature record, a data set that's generated considerable interest — and some controversy — in the past. GISS updated its surface temperature record with 2009 data this week, and reported that the last decade was the warmest on record.

NASA's Earth Science News Team: Every year, some of the same questions come up about the temperature record. What are they?

Gavin%20Schmidt
Goddard Institute for Space Studies climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. (Image credit: GISS)

Gavin Schmidt: First, do the annual rankings mean anything? Second, how should we interpret all of the changes from year to year — or inter-annual variability — the ups and downs that occur in the record over short time periods? Third, why does NASA GISS get a slightly different answer than the Met Office Hadley Centre does? Fourth, is GISS somehow cooking the books in its handling and analysis of the data?

NASA: 2009 just came in as tied as the 2nd warmest on record, which seems notable. What is the significance of the yearly temperature rankings?

Schmidt: In fact, for any individual year, the ranking isn't particularly meaningful. The difference between the second warmest and sixth warmest years, for example, is trivial. The media is always interested in the annual rankings, but whether it's 2003, 2007, or 2009 that's second warmest doesn't really mean much because the difference between the years is so small. The rankings are more meaningful as you look at longer averages and decade-long trends.

NASA: Why does GISS get a different answer than the Met Office Hadley Centre [a UK climate research group that works jointly with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia to perform an analysis of global temperatures]?

Schmidt: It's mainly related to the way the weather station data is extrapolated. The Hadley Centre uses basically the same data sets as GISS, for example, but it doesn't fill in large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic regions where fixed monitoring stations don't exist. Instead of leaving those areas out from our analysis, you can use numbers from the nearest available stations, as long as they are within 1,200 kilometers. Overall, this gives the GISS product more complete coverage of the polar areas.

NASA: Some might hear the word "extrapolate" and conclude that you're "making up" data. How would you reply to such criticism?

Schmidt: The assumption is simply that the Arctic Ocean as a whole is warming at the average of the stations around it. What people forget is that if you don't put any values in for the areas where stations are sparse, then when you go to calculate the global mean, you're actually assuming that the Arctic is warming at the same rate as the global mean. So, either way you are making an assumption.

Which one of those is the better assumption? Given all the changes we've observed in the Arctic sea ice with satellites, we believe it's better to assume the Arctic Ocean is changing at the same rate as the other stations around the Arctic. That's given GISS a slightly larger warming, particularly in the last couple of years, relative to the Hadley Centre.

NASA: Many have noted that the winter has been particularly cold and snowy in some parts of the United States and elsewhere. Does this mean that climate change isn't happening?

Schmidt: No, it doesn't, though you can't dismiss people's concerns and questions about the fact that local temperatures have been cool. Just remember that there's always going to be variability. That's weather. As a result, some areas will still have occasionally cool temperatures — even record-breaking cool — as average temperatures are expected to continue to rise globally.

NASA: So what's happening in the United States may be quite different than what's happening in other areas of the world?

Schmidt: Yes, especially for short time periods. Keep in mind that that the contiguous United States represents just 1.5 percent of Earth's surface.

NASA: GISS has been accused by critics of manipulating data. Has this changed the way that GISS handles its temperature data?

Schmidt: Indeed, there are people who believe that GISS uses its own private data or somehow massages the data to get the answer we want. That's completely inaccurate. We do an analysis of the publicly available data that is collected by other groups. All of the data is available to the public for download, as are the computer programs used to analyze it. One of the reasons the GISS numbers are used and quoted so widely by scientists is that the process is completely open to outside scrutiny.

NASA: What about the meteorological stations? There have been suggestions that some of the stations are located in the wrong place, are using outdated instrumentation, etc.

Schmidt: Global weather services gather far more data than we need. To get the structure of the monthly or yearly anomalies over the United States, for example, you'd just need a handful of stations, but there are actually some 1,100 of them. You could throw out 50 percent of the station data or more, and you'd get basically the same answers. Individual stations do get old and break down, since they're exposed to the elements, but this is just one of things that the NOAA has to deal with. One recent innovation is the set up of a climate reference network alongside the current stations so that they can look for potentially serious issues at the large scale — and they haven't found any yet.

 
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Press Release 10-062
On 'Earth Week,' World Is No Longer Our Oyster

Acidifying oceans dramatically stunt growth of already threatened shellfish

April 19, 2010

The world is no longer our oyster.

As we prepare to celebrate Earth Day on April 22, we can add another species, one of widespread ecological and economic importance, to the list of the beleaguered.

From East Coast to West and around the world, global warming and its effects have descended upon shellfish reefs, particularly those formed by the Olympia oyster. 

More than one-third of the world's human-caused carbon dioxide emissions have entered the oceans, according to Brian Gaylord, a biological oceanographer at the Bodega Marine Laboratory of the University of California at Davis.

"Similar to what happens in carbonated soda," says Gaylord, "increasing carbon dioxide in seawater makes it more acidic."

Even with small changes in acidity, seawater becomes corrosive to the shells of aquatic organisms.

That's not good news for most marine life, especially for oysters.

Gaylord is investigating the consequences of this increasing ocean acidity on the growth of larval and juvenile Olympia oysters native to the U.S. West Coast.

"Such early life stages can be extremely sensitive to environmental stresses like ocean acidification," says Gaylord.

"These stages operate as bottlenecks that drive overall population numbers.  If larval and juvenile Olympia oysters decline as a result of an acidifying ocean, what does that mean for the species as a whole?"

Likely nothing good, he and colleagues say.

"Changes now happening in the ocean's chemistry are expected to continue far into the foreseeable future," says David Garrison, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s biological oceanography program, which funds Gaylord's research. "They may have myriad effects on marine animals."

Gaylord conducted experiments on larvae and juveniles produced by adult oysters in Tomales Bay, California. Adults were collected in the bay, then held at the Bodega Marine Laboratory until they released larvae.

In the lab, the free-swimming larvae were reared into early juvenile life.

Carbon dioxide concentrations in laboratory seawater were controlled to match present-day conditions in the oceans, 380 parts per million (ppm), as well as two carbon dioxide scenarios projected to occur by the year 2100 (540 and 970 ppm).

Mid-way through the larval phase at day nine, oysters in the high carbon dioxide treatment had shells that were 16 percent smaller than those reared in control, or ambient, conditions.

These effects continued through the time the larval oysters settled onto hard substrate at day 12. Shell size was seven percent smaller for oysters in the 970 ppm treatment than in the control group.

By a week later, the effects were dramatically magnified. The bottom-dwelling juveniles in the 970 ppm treatment had grown 41 percent less than juveniles under control conditions.

The consequences persisted, even after the juveniles from all treatments had been returned to present-day conditions.

"One and a half months after being transferred back to normal seawater," says Gaylord, "juveniles that had come from the high carbon dioxide environment were still 28 percent smaller than oysters reared for the entire experiment in control conditions."

The results strongly suggest that the effects of ocean acidification on oyster larvae persist well into the juvenile phase, he says, with potential consequences for oyster populations.

"If similar impacts happen to species beyond the Olympia oyster, there could be repercussions for oysters around the world."

Globally, 85 percent of shellfish reefs have been lost, making oyster reefs one of the most severely threatened marine habitats on the planet.

"Shellfish reefs in some places are at less than 10 percent of their former abundance," says Garrison. "Oysters have gone extinct in many areas, especially in North America, Australia and Europe."

Just as coral reefs are critical to tropical marine habitats, shellfish like oysters are the ecosystem engineers of bays and estuaries, creating dwelling places for countless plants and animals that find refuge in their three-dimensional structure.

The surface area of an oyster bed across its dips and folds and crevices may be 50 times greater than that of an equally extensive flat mud bottom.

Shellfish reefs also provide important services to people by filtering water, and serving as natural coastal buffers from boat wakes, sea-level rise and storms.

Oysters have supported civilization for millennia, from the ancient Romans to railroad workers in California in the 1880s. In the 1870s, eastern oyster reefs extended for miles along the James River in Chesapeake Bay. By the 1940s, they had largely disappeared.

"It's unclear whether we will ever be able to return to that by-gone era," says Gaylord. "The constellation of environmental and other pressures on oysters--including the consequences of ocean acidification--places them at grave risk."

Gaylord and colleagues presented early results of their research at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon, in February. They plan to publish a paper with updated findings later this year.

-NSF-

 
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NASA to Launch Human-Like Robot to Join Space Station Crew
04.15.10
 
JSC2009-E-155300:%20Robonaut

Robonaut2 – or R2 for short – is the next generation dexterous robot, developed through a Space Act Agreement by NASA and General Motors. Credit: NASA.
› View more images
› View video -->

NASA will launch the first human-like robot to space later this year to become a permanent resident of the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, or R2, was developed jointly by NASA and General Motors under a cooperative agreement to develop a robotic assistant that can work alongside humans, whether they are astronauts in space or workers at GM manufacturing plants on Earth.

The 300-pound R2 consists of a head and a torso with two arms and two hands. R2 will launch on space shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-133 mission planned for September. Once aboard the station, engineers will monitor how the robot operates in weightlessness.

R2 will be confined to operations in the station's Destiny laboratory. However, future enhancements and modifications may allow it to move more freely around the station's interior or outside the complex.

"This project exemplifies the promise that a future generation of robots can have both in space and on Earth, not as replacements for humans but as companions that can carry out key supporting roles," said John Olson, director of NASA's Exploration Systems Integration Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The combined potential of humans and robots is a perfect example of the sum equaling more than the parts. It will allow us to go farther and achieve more than we can probably even imagine today."

The dexterous robot not only looks like a human but also is designed to work like one. With human-like hands and arms, R2 is able to use the same tools station crew members use. In the future, the greatest benefits of humanoid robots in space may be as assistants or stand-in for astronauts during spacewalks or for tasks too difficult or dangerous for humans. For now, R2 is still a prototype and does not have adequate protection needed to exist outside the space station in the extreme temperatures of space.

Testing the robot inside the station will provide an important intermediate environment. R2 will be tested in microgravity and subjected to the station's radiation and electromagnetic interference environments. The interior operations will provide performance data about how a robot may work side-by-side with astronauts. As development activities progress on the ground, station crews may be provided hardware and software to update R2 to enable it to do new tasks.

R2 is undergoing extensive testing in preparation for its flight. Vibration, vacuum and radiation testing along with other procedures being conducted on R2 also benefit the team at GM. The automaker plans to use technologies from R2 in future advanced vehicle safety systems and manufacturing plant applications.

"The extreme levels of testing R2 has undergone as it prepares to venture to the International Space Station are on par with the validation our vehicles and components go through on the path to production," said Alan Taub, vice president of GM's global research and development. "The work done by GM and NASA engineers also will help us validate manufacturing technologies that will improve the health and safety of our GM team members at our manufacturing plants throughout the world. Partnerships between organizations such as GM and NASA help ensure space exploration, road travel and manufacturing can become even safer in the future."
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 21 2010 at 1:17pm
NASA's New Eye on the Sun Delivers Stunning First Images
04.21.10

NASA's recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is returning early images that confirm an unprecedented new capability for scientists to better understand our sun�s dynamic processes. These solar activities affect everything on Earth.

Some of the images from the spacecraft show never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the sun�s surface. The spacecraft also has made the first high-resolution measurements of solar flares in a broad range of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.

"These initial images show a dynamic sun that I had never seen in more than 40 years of solar research,� said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "SDO will change our understanding of the sun and its processes, which affect our lives and society. This mission will have a huge impact on science, similar to the impact of the Hubble Space Telescope on modern astrophysics.�

SDO%20First%20Light%20composite%20image%20from%20March%2030,%202010. A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO on March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F). Credit: NASA


Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun. During its five-year mission, it will examine the sun's magnetic field and also provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate. Since launch, engineers have been conducting testing and verification of the spacecraft�s components. Now fully operational, SDO will provide images with clarity 10 times better than high-definition television and will return more comprehensive science data faster than any other solar observing spacecraft.
 
SDO will determine how the sun's magnetic field is generated, structured and converted into violent solar events such as turbulent solar wind, solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These immense clouds of material, when directed toward Earth, can cause large magnetic storms in our planet’s magnetosphere and upper atmosphere.

SDO will provide critical data that will improve the ability to predict these space weather events. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., built, operates and manages the SDO spacecraft for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“I’m so proud of our brilliant work force at Goddard, which is rewriting science textbooks once again.” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA. “This time Goddard is shedding new light on our closest star, the sun, discovering new information about powerful solar flares that affect us here on Earth by damaging communication satellites and temporarily knocking out power grids. Better data means more accurate solar storm warnings.”
 
Space weather has been recognized as a cause of technological problems since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century. These events produce disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines and causing widespread blackouts. These solar storms can interfere with communications between ground controllers, satellites and airplane pilots flying near Earth's poles. Radio noise from the storm also can disrupt cell phone service.
 
SDO will send 1.5 terabytes of data back to Earth each day, which is equivalent to a daily download of half a million songs onto an MP3 player. The observatory carries three state-of the-art instruments for conducting solar research.
 
Comparison%20of%20SDO%20image%20size%20to%20STEREO,%20SOHO,%20High-Definition%20TV%20and%20regular%20TV. This image compares the relative size of SDO's imagery to that of other missions. Credit: NASA

The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager maps solar magnetic fields and looks beneath the sun’s opaque surface. The experiment will decipher the physics of the sun’s activity, taking pictures in several very narrow bands of visible light. Scientists will be able to make ultrasound images of the sun and study active regions in a way similar to watching sand shift in a desert dune. The instrument’s principal investigator is Phil Scherrer of Stanford University. HMI was built by a collaboration of Stanford University and the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif.

The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly is a group of four telescopes designed to photograph the sun’s surface and atmosphere. The instrument covers 10 different wavelength bands, or colors, selected to reveal key aspects of solar activity. These types of images will show details never seen before by scientists. The principal investigator is Alan Title of the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, which built the instrument.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment measures fluctuations in the sun’s radiant emissions. These emissions have a direct and powerful effect on Earth’s upper atmosphere -- heating it, puffing it up, and breaking apart atoms and molecules. Researchers don’t know how fast the sun can vary at many of these wavelengths, so they expect to make discoveries about flare events. The principal investigator is Tom Woods of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. LASP built the instrument.

"These amazing images, which show our dynamic sun in a new level of detail, are only the beginning of SDO's contribution to our understanding of the sun," said SDO Project Scientist Dean Pesnell of Goddard.

SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living with a Star Program, or LWS, and the crown jewel in a fleet of NASA missions that study our sun and space environment. The goal of LWS is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society.
 
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Recent Global CO2

Global%20CO2
PDF Version

The graph shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. The Global Monitoring Division of NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory has measured carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for several decades at a globally distributed network of air sampling sites (Conway, 1994). A global average is constructed by first fitting a smoothed curve as a function of time to each site, and then the smoothed value for each site is plotted as a function of latitude for 48 equal time steps per year. A global average is calculated from the latitude plot at each time step (Masarie, 1995). The last four complete years plus the current year are shown here. The last year of data are still preliminary, pending recalibrations of reference gases and other quality control checks.

Data are reported as a dry air mole fraction defined as the number of molecules of carbon dioxide divided by the number of all molecules in air, including CO2 itself, after water vapor has been removed. The mole fraction is expressed as parts per million (ppm). Example: 0.000400 is expressed as 400 ppm.

The dashed red line with diamond symbols represents the monthly mean values, centered on the middle of each month. The black line with the square symbols represents the same, after correction for the average seasonal cycle. The latter is determined as a moving average of SEVEN adjacent seasonal cycles centered on the month to be corrected, except for the first and last THREE and one-half years of the record, where the seasonal cycle has been averaged over the first and last SEVEN years, respectively.

Click for a comparison with recent trends in carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, which has the longest continuous record of direct atmospheric CO2 measurements.


Annual Mean Global Carbon Dioxide Growth Rates

< =MediumBlackMonon rows=20 cols=14 readOnly>year ppm/yr 1980 1.72 1981 1.03 1982 1.03 1983 1.85 1984 1.23 1985 1.73 1986 1.04 1987 2.66 1988 2.18 1989 1.38 1990 1.28 1991 0.74 1992 0.66 1993 1.18 1994 1.66 1995 2.00 1996 1.06 1997 1.97 1998 2.91 1999 1.35 2000 1.23 2001 1.88 2002 2.42 2003 2.18 2004 1.61 2005 2.37 2006 1.79 2007 2.13 2008 1.79 2009 1.86

The table shows annual mean carbon dioxide growth rates based on globally averaged marine surface data.

The annual mean rate of growth of CO2 in a given year is the difference in concentration between the end of December and the start of January of that year. It represents the sum of all CO2 added to, and removed from, the atmosphere during the year by human activities and by natural processes. The annual mean growth during the previous year is determined by taking the average of the most recent December and January months, corrected for the average seasonal cycle, as the trend value for January 1, and then subtracting the same December-January average measured one year earlier. Our first estimate for the annual growth rate of the previous year is produced in January of the following year, using data through November of the previous year. That estimate will then be updated in February using data though December, and again in March using data through January. We finalize our estimate for the growth rate of the previous year in the fall of the following year because a few of the air samples on which the global estimate is based are received late in the following year.

The values in this table are subject to change depending on quality control checks of the measured data, but any revisions are expected to be small. The estimates of the global mean CO2 concentration, and thus the annual growth rate, are updated every month as new data come in. The statistics are as follows. If we estimate during a given month ("m") the global average CO2 during the previous month ("m-1"), the result differs from the estimate made (up to almost a year later) when all the data are in, with a standard deviation of 0.57 ppm. For month m-2, the standard deviation is 0.17 ppm, and for month m-3 it is 0.10 ppm. We decided to provide the global mean estimates with a lag of two months. Thus, a December average is first calculated during the following February.

The estimated uncertainty in the global annual mean growth rate is 0.07 ppm/yr. This estimate is derived using a bootstrap technique that computes 100 global annual growth rates, each time using a slightly different set of measurement records from the NOAA ESRL cooperative air sampling network (Conway, 1994). The reported uncertainty is the mean of the estimated uncertainties for each annual average growth rate using this technique.

 
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NASA Satellite Data Helps Everyone Breath a Little Easier
04.22.10
 
Feeling a little ill? Step outside for some fresh air.

But before you do, you may want to check the latest NASA data about what, exactly, is in the air we breathe.

Haze%20blanketing%20Beijing%20China%20in%20Jan.%202010 

Haze blanketed Beijing, China, on January 18, 2010, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image. Credit: NASA

NASA-funded scientists and medical researchers are working together to tackle the problems of public health associated with bad air quality. Bad air quality can contribute to and aggravate asthma, bronchitis, high blood pressure, and stroke -- to name a few. Air quality-related health problems result in hospital visits that cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually.
› RAND study: Air pollution costs $193 million in hospital visits
NASA is using data intended for weather and climate research to help pinpoint how environmental factors such as aerosol levels in the atmosphere impact cardiovascular health. Aerosols are solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere, and can occur naturally or get emitted by human activities such as burning fossil fuels.

Scientists measure aerosols, also called particulate matter (PM), by their size. The smallest particles -- less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) -- are the worst for human health because they can make their way into the lungs or bloodstream and exacerbate cardiovascular problems, especially in very young and elderly populations.

The ability to detect these microscopic particles (often found in smoke and haze) is helping public health researchers better document the health risks for the general population and specifically at-risk populations.

Dr. Yang Liu, a researcher at Emory University, first realized that NASA satellite data could enhance public health tracking while attending a 2007 NASA workshop where scientists from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) presented an overview of a newly formed tracking network.

The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network was created in 2002 as a cooperative program to find and document links between environmental hazards, such as aerosols, and diseases. The network uses ground-based air pollution data provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and disease information from the CDC to monitor and distribute information about environmental hazards and disease trends, as well as develop a strategy to combat these trends.

Smog%20in%20downtown%20Atlanta,%20Georgia,%20June%202009 

Smog in downtown Atlanta, taken in June 2009. Credit: Institute for Southern Studies

Since the workshop, Dr. Liu has been working with NASA to integrate data from two instruments, the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) (onboard the NASA Terra satellite) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (onboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites) into the tracking network. Both MISR and MODIS are used to monitor tropospheric aerosols.

"NASA satellites allow faster observations with a wider view to increase our understanding of the connections between PM 2.5 and illnesses, " said Liu "We can essentially provide more timely estimates of harmful aerosol concentrations."

Until recently, ground-based air quality monitoring has been the only data source for estimating exposure to aerosols. However, even in the U.S., the networks are spread out and the coverage is limited by high operating costs. Using NASA satellite information, federal, state, and local agencies will be better prepared to develop and evaluate effective public health actions.

Liu explains that "Satellites have both wide spatial coverage and long mission lives, so a satellite measuring the quantity of small aerosol particles over a larger area can supplement ground-based measurements and do so over a longer period of time."

NASA's contribution to public health does not stop there, however. NASA also has been working with researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to determine how atmospheric conditions contribute to cardiovascular disease in African Americans. Past research has shown that group to have a higher risk of contracting cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and other environmentally related diseases.

UAB has been working for six years on a public health study called Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS). Funded by the National Institutes of Health, REGARDS researchers recorded blood pressure, took blood samples, and asked detailed health questions of more than 30,000 people, particularly African Americans, between January 2003 and October 2007. The study focused on the so-called 'Stroke Belt', the area in the southeastern U.S. where incidents of stroke are 1.5 times the national average.

The REGARDS program is now working with colleagues at NASA to integrate satellite data on temperature, humidity, particulate matter in the air, and other environmental elements, to understand the connections between the atmosphere and human health.

"We can merge the REGARDS data with our data from MODIS," said Mohammed Al-Hamden, a co-lead on the project and a scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "We examine the statistical relationships between these diseases and the air quality and climate where these people live. With the wide spatial coverage of satellite measurements, we can better help health officials with environmental alerts and health recommendations."

Bill Crosson, the other NASA lead on the REGARDS project says the value of integrating NASA data is "that the data comes quickly and more frequently -- daily instead of weekly so we can provide it to the people who really need it."

The regional study has been so successful that it has recently expanded to the entire nation, with the information that NASA provides being integrated into a CDC database of public health records, called the Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiological Research (WONDER). NASA and UAB researchers are expanding the subject of the study along with its geographic range. Researchers are now exploring the connection between harmful particulate matter and cognitive decline, including memory, attention span, as well as reading listening comprehension.

With these two NASA-sponsored projects, public health officials are improving air quality forecasts, preparing hospitals for air quality-related health problems, and perhaps preventing health problems in the future by warning the public about the potentially harmful effects of aerosols.
 
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Couldnt help it (To Kewl Not To Post)
The Birth of Stars
 
This new Hubble photo is but a small portion of one of the largest seen star-birth
 regions in the galaxy, the Carina Nebula. Towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust
 rise from the wall of the nebula. Reminiscent of Hubble's classic image of the Eagle
Nebula dubbed the 'Pillars of Creation' this image is even more striking in appearance.
 
Captured here are the top of a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and the dust that is
being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also
being pushed apart from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas
that can be seen streaming from towering peaks like arrows sailing through the air.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)
 
 
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Global Highlights

  • The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record at 13.5°C (56.3°F), which is 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average of 12.7°C (54.9°F). This was also the 34th consecutive March with global land and ocean temperatures above the 20th century average.
  • The March worldwide land surface temperature was 1.36°C (2.45°F) above the 20th century average of 5.0°C (40.8°F)—the fourth warmest on record.
  • The worldwide ocean surface temperature was 0.56°C (1.01°F) above the 20th century average of 15.9°C (60.7°F) and the warmest March on record.
  • For the year-to-date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 13.0°C (55.3°F) was the fourth warmest January-March period. This value is 0.66°C (1.19°F) above the 20th century average.

Please Note: The data presented in this report are preliminary. Ranks and anomalies may change as more complete data are received and processed. Effective with the July 2009 State of the Climate Report, NCDC transitioned to the new version (version 3b) of the extended reconstructed sea surface temperature (ERSST) dataset. ERSST.v3b is an improved extended SST reconstruction over version 2. For more information about the differences between ERSST.v3b and ERSST.v2 and to access the most current data, please visit NCDC's Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.


Introduction

Temperature anomalies for March 2010 are shown on the dot maps below. The dot map on the left provides a spatial representation of anomalies calculated from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) dataset of land surface stations using a 1961-1990 base period. The dot map on the right is a product of a merged land surface and sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly analysis developed by Smith et al. (2008). For the merged land surface and SST analysis, temperature anomalies with respect to the 1971-2000 average for land and ocean are analyzed separately and then merged to form the global analysis. For more information, please visit NCDC's Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.


March 2010

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature anomaly for March 2010 was 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average, resulting in the warmest March since records began in 1880. The previous record was set in 2002 when temperatures were 0.74°C (1.33°F) above the 20th century average. Sea surface temperatures (SST) during March 2010 were warmer than average across much of the world's oceans, with the cooler-than-average conditions across the higher-latitude southern oceans, across parts of the northern Pacific Ocean, and along the western coast of South America. Warmer-than-average conditions were most pronounced in the equatorial portions of the oceans, where the tropical ocean surface temperature (equatorward of 20 degrees latitude) also had its warmest March on record. The March 2010 worldwide SST ranked as the warmest on record, with an anomaly of 0.56°C (1.01°F) above the 20th century average—the previous record was set in 1998. El Niño weakened to moderate strength during March; however, it contributed significantly to the warmth observed in the tropical belt and the overall ocean temperature. According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, El Niño is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010 and transition to ENSO-neutral conditions by the Northern Hemisphere summer 2010.

Did you know?

Asheville%20Stations

In climate change studies, temperature anomalies are more important than absolute temperature. A temperature anomaly is the difference from an average, or baseline, temperature. The baseline temperature is typically computed by averaging 30 or more years of temperature data. A positive anomaly indicates the observed temperature was warmer than the baseline, while a negative anomaly indicates the observed temperature was cooler than the baseline. When calculating an average of absolute temperatures, things like station location or elevation will have an effect on the data (ex. higher elevations tend to be cooler than lower elevations and urban areas tend to be warmer than rural areas). However, when looking at anomalies, those factors are less critical. For example, a summer month over an area may be cooler than average, both at a mountain top and in a nearby valley, but the absolute temperatures will be quite different at the two locations.

Using anomalies also helps minimize problems when stations are added, removed, or missing from the monitoring network. The above diagram shows absolute temperatures (lines) for five neighboring stations, with the 2008 anomalies as symbols. Notice how all of the anomalies fit into a tiny range when compared to the absolute temperatures. Even if one station were removed from the record, the average anomaly would not change significantly, but the overall average temperature could change significantly depending on which station dropped out of the record. For example, if the coolest station (Mt. Mitchell) were removed from the record, the average absolute temperature would become significantly warmer. However, because its anomaly is similar to the neighboring stations, the average anomaly would change much less.

The worldwide land surface temperature was the fourth warmest on record, with a temperature anomaly of 1.36°C (2.45°F) above the 20th century average. During March 2010, warmer-than-average conditions dominated the globe, with the most prominent warmth in northern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Canada. Cooler-than-average conditions were present across Mongolia, central and eastern Russia, northern and western Europe, Mexico, the southeastern U.S., northern Australia, and western Alaska.

Most of Canada was engulfed by abnormally warm conditions during March 2010. Mean temperature records were set or tied across Ontario, Canada, as mean temperatures were 2.5°-8.1°C above the March average, according to Environment Canada.

The March 2010 average temperature across China was 3.4°C (38.1°F), which is 0.02°C (0.04°F) above the 1971-2000 average of 3.2°C (37.8°C)—according to Beijing Climate Center (BCC). It was reported that Tibet experienced its second warmest March temperatures since historic records began in 1951 (Source: BCC).

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), many locations across India experienced their warmest March maximum, minimum, or mean temperatures on record. Delhi, India experienced above-average temperatures during March 2010. The average maximum and minimum temperatures for March 2010 were 34.1°C (93.4°F) and 18.6°C (65.5°F)—which is 4.1°C (7.4°F) and 3.2°C (5.8°F) above average, respectively. These were the second warmest March maximum and minimum temperatures, behind 1953 (34.3°C [93.7°F]) and 1916 (18.8 [65.8°F]), respectively. Delhi's average mean temperature during March 2010 was 26.3°C (79.3°F), the second warmest March mean temperature on record, behind 1953 (26.4°C [79.5°F]). Records in Delhi began in 1901. Please see IMD's March 2010 report for additional information.

The March 2010 average temperature for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole (land and ocean surface combined) was 0.92°C (1.66°F) above the 20th century average—the third warmest March on record, behind 2008 (warmest March) and 1990 (second warmest March). The Northern Hemisphere ocean temperature during March 2010 ranked as the warmest March on record, with an anomaly of 0.54°C (0.97°F) above the 20th century average. The previous record was set in 2004 when the Northern Hemisphere March ocean temperature was 0.49°C (0.88°F) above the 20th century average. The March 2010 Northern Hemisphere land temperature was the fourth warmest on record (1.52°C [2.74°F] above the 20th century average).

The average temperature for the Southern Hemisphere as a whole (land and ocean surface combined) was 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20th century average—the second warmest March on record, behind 1998. The Southern Hemisphere ocean temperature during March 2010 also represented the second warmest, with an anomaly of 0.59°C (1.06°F) above the 20th century average. The March 2010 Southern Hemisphere land temperature was 0.95°C (1.71°F) above the 20th century average—the warmest on record. The previous record was set in 1998.

Year-to-date (January-March)

The January-March 2010 map of temperature anomalies shows that for the first three months of the year anomalous warm temperatures were present over much of the world, with the exception of cooler-than-average conditions across the higher-latitude southern oceans, the northern Pacific Ocean, and along the western South American coast, Mongolia, northern China, northern Australia, the south central and southeastern contiguous U.S., northern Mexico, and most of Europe and Russia. The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January-March period was the fourth warmest on record. This value is 0.66°C (1.19°F) above the 20th century average. Separately, the worldwide land surface temperature ranked as the fifth warmest on record, while the worldwide ocean surface temperature ranked as the second warmest January-March on record—behind 1998.

 
For the Complete March Climate Record including
Precipitation
Snow Cover Extent
Sea Ice Extent
Troposphere (Temp)
Stratoshpere
and other Temp Graphs
 
 
 
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Vital New Roadmap     Underscores Need to Study Climate Change, Human Health Links

Asthma, Cancer, Weather Disaster-Related Illnesses Cited Among Concerns

April 22, 2010

The vulnerability of people to the health effects of climate change is the focus of a report released today by an NIH-led federal interagency group that includes NOAA. The report,   A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, calls for coordinating federal research to better understand climate’s impact on human health and identifying how these impacts can be most effectively addressed. The report was published by Environmental Health Perspectives and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. 

The report indicates what is known and the significant knowledge gaps in our understanding of the consequences of climate change on 11 major illness categories, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke, asthma and other respiratory disorders, food-borne diseases and nutrition, weather and heat-related fatalities, and water and vector-borne infectious diseases.  

 To mitigate and adapt to the health effects of climate change, we must first understand them. This report is a vital new roadmap for doing that, said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “There is an urgent need to get started, and I am pleased that we can bring NOAA climate science and NOAA capabilities in linking ocean and human health and a range of other monitoring and prediction tools to the table.”    

Health experts from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and NIH Fogarty International Center, NOAA, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy contributed to the report.

Research recommendations include examining how diseases in marine mammals might be linked to human health; investigating how climate change might contaminate seafood, beaches and drinking water; and understanding the impact of atmospheric changes on heat waves and air-borne diseases. There are questions about the effects of increased rainfall and extreme weather events on sewage discharges and run-off and what this will mean to human health. Integrating human, terrestrial and aquatic animal health surveillance with environmental monitoring is recommended to better understand emerging health risks like Lyme disease, West Nile virus, malaria, and toxins from marine algae.  

To address disaster planning and management, the report encourages research aimed at strengthening healthcare and emergency services, especially when events such as floods, drought and wildfires can affect human health both during and after an event. The report also identifies the need for more effective early warning systems providing, for example, an alert to those with cardiovascular disease on extreme heat days or when air pollution is high. Other issues include susceptible and displaced populations; public health and health care infrastructure; essential capacities and skills, particularly for modeling and prediction; the integration of climate observation networks with health impact and surveillance tools, and communication and education.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

 
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Discovery
Even in the Desert, Plants Feel the Heat of Global Warming

NSF-supported researchers study the germination of plants in the Sonoran Desert to determine the impact of the later arrival of winter rains

April 23, 2010

Global warming is a hot topic, and it's causing concern for scientists studying winter annuals in the Sonoran Desert.

While desert winters have become warmer and drier over the years, climate changes have pushed the arrival of winter rains later in the year, forcing winter annual plants like the curvenut combseed (Pectocarya recurvata) to emerge later when temperatures are colder.

In 1982, Larry Venable, an ecologist at the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, began a study at the Desert Laboratory on nearby Tumamoc Hill in order to investigate adaptive "bet-hedging" in plants.

Bet-hedging is an adaptive response by seeds that allows them to delay germination. The germination delay can be caused by insufficient rainfall, lack of nutrients, inappropriate temperatures or any adverse condition that would affect the survival of a seed, and it allows a plant to improve chances of survival. The seeds can remain dormant for extended periods if the environment is unfavorable for germination and survival.

"No one had bothered to study real desert annuals to see what happens, and here I was, suddenly working as a plant ecologist in the middle of the desert," Venable said. "The theory involved plants that hedge against year-to-year variation in reproductive success, so I thought I'd set up some field plots and measure it."

The later arrival of Sonoran desert winter rains pushes the germination of the winter annuals later into the year and has affected the types of winter annuals that dominate the location. Researchers measure carbon and nitrogen in the plants' leaves to learn how well the various species grow at winter's lower temperatures.

"The species that we are calling 'cold-adapted' species have high lifetime-water-use efficiency (WUE), as measured with carbon isotopes," said study author Sarah Kimball, a research associate in UA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology and a colleague of Venable's. "They also have high amounts of nitrogen in their leaves. The high nitrogen, along with instantaneous gas exchange measurements, indicate the plants have a high investment in light-gathering capacity, which indicates a greater ability to photosynthesize under low temperatures," Kimball added.

The plant's greater ability to photosynthesize translates into a greater ability to use energy from sunlight and convert it into food, improving chances for survival. Venable and his colleagues found that plants with more efficient water storage are the species prevailing in the colder environment.

Tracking the progression of germination involves studying plots of soil as small as hundredths of a square meter.

"We check for germination by going out in the field several days after a rain event and looking for seedlings," Kimball said. "When germination occurs, we use acetate sheets to map the location of each individual."

"Mapping" involves the researchers getting on their knees and identifying each individual plant in the plot. The team places acetate sheets over the plots of soil, and the researchers make marks on the sheets to identify the location of each seedling.

The researchers identify the tiny plants by using the seedlings' embryonic first leaves, known as cotyledons. While the acquisition of the data sounds simple enough, it can be complicated.

"In wet years, when there is a high density of plants, the 'maps' that we make get very full, so each plot takes a long time and it can be difficult to be sure that we record every individual," Kimball said.

"Anticipating timing and insuring adequate work hours and materials are available at the right time to match the plants' growth events is difficult," Venable added.

The winter annuals are not the only vegetation affected by the climate shift occurring in the Sonoran desert. The increasingly drier climate has caused a decrease in dominant desert shrubbery as well. The lack of water available to the shrubs has caused them decrease in size so they can more efficiently utilize the amount of water that's available.

If the later arrival of winter rains continues, the germination of the winter annuals will subsequently occur later in the year, and the plant community will continuously change and favor plants that thrive in colder environments.

-- Monica Kanojia, National Science Foundation

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Investigators
Larry Venable
Sarah Kimball

Related Institutions/Organizations
University of Arizona

Locations
Arizona

 
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Press Release 10-066
Soil Microbes Produce Less Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Than Expected With Climate Warming

Key players in carbon cycle multiply slowly when overheated

Many species of fungi proliferate in Alaska's boreal forest.
Credit and Larger Version

April 25, 2010

In dark, rich soils on every continent, microbes dealing with the effects of climate change aren't accelerating global warming the way scientists had predicted, a study by researchers at the University of California at Irvine, Colorado State University and Yale University shows.

Results of the study appear in a paper published on-line this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. Department of Energy.

"Microbes continually surprise us in the diverse ways they respond to environmental conditions," said Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research along with NSF's Advancing Theory in Biology program, part of the Directorate for Biological Sciences Office of Emerging Frontiers.

"Microbes play a central role in ecological processes," said Twombly, "and their responses change our understanding of natural communities in fundamental ways."

Conventional scientific wisdom holds that even a few degrees of human-caused climate warming will shift fungi and bacteria that consume soil-based carbon into overdrive, and that their growth will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

But a research team led by ecologist Steve Allison of UC Irvine took a closer look, and found something different.

While microbial soil decomposition, and resulting carbon dioxide emissions, increase initially, microbes eventually overheat and grow more slowly.

As their numbers decline, they release decreasing amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gases.

"Microbes are the engines that drive carbon cycling in soils," said Allison.

"In a balanced environment, plants store carbon in the soil and microbes use that carbon to grow. Enzymes produced by microbes convert soil carbon into atmospheric carbon dioxide."

A previous study by Mark Bradford of Yale and Matthew Wallenstein of Colorado State found that microbes became less efficient at decomposing soil carbon after several years of experimental warming.

They asked Allison to develop a computer model to test how adaptation of microbes to climate change might affect the carbon cycle.

"The issue we have in predicting whether soil carbon loss will accelerate climate warming is that the microbial processes causing this loss are poorly understood," said Bradford. "More research in this area will help reduce uncertainties in climate prediction."

In the resulting computer model, microbes became less efficient at converting their carbon food source into biomass as climate warmed.

In short, the microbes were not well adapted to a warmer climate. As their growth slowed, so did enzyme production.

"When we developed a model based on the actual biology of soil microbes, we found that soil carbon may not be lost to the atmosphere as the climate warms," Allison said. "Conventional ecosystem models that didn't include enzymes did not make the same predictions."

The next steps include studying more microbes and more ecosystems.

Microbes from a Massachusetts forest inspired this study, then Allison began collecting soil samples from California, Alaska, Maine and Costa Rica.

"Nearly one-third of all soil-based carbon is sequestered in permafrost or Arctic regions, which might respond differently to warming," said Wallenstein, who is researching sites in Greenland and Alaska.

"We need to develop more models to include microbe diversity," Allison said. "But the general principle that's important in our model is the decline of carbon dioxide production after an initial increase."

-NSF-

 
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2010 April 27
See%20Explanation.%20%20Clicking%20on%20the%20picture%20will%20download&#10;%20the%20highest%20resolution%20version%20available.

The Bloop: A Mysterious Sound from the Deep Ocean
Credit:
NOAA, SOSUS

Explanation: What created this strange sound in Earth's Pacific Ocean? Pictured above is a visual representation of a loud and unusual sound, dubbed a Bloop, captured by deep sea microphones in 1997. In the above graph, time is shown on the horizontal axis, deep pitch is shown on the vertical axis, and brightness designates loudness. Although Bloops are some of the loudest sounds of any type ever recorded in Earth's oceans, their origin remains unknown. The Bloop sound was placed as occurring several times off the southern coast of South America and was audible 5,000 kilometers away. Although the sound has similarities to those vocalized by living organisms, not even a blue whale is large enough to croon this loud. The sounds point to the intriguing hypothesis that even larger life forms lurk in the unexplored darkness of Earth's deep oceans. A less imagination-inspiring possibility, however, is that the sounds resulted from some sort of iceberg calving. No further Bloops have been heard since 1997, although other loud and unexplained sounds have been recorded.

 
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2009 October 25
See%20Explanation.%20%20Clicking%20on%20the%20picture%20will%20download&#10;%20the%20highest%20resolution%20version%20available.

M1: The Crab Nebula from Hubble
Credit:
NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll (ASU); Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (Skyfactory)

Explanation: This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The above image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is presented in three colors chosen for scientific interest. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second.

 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2010 at 9:54pm
A look at Solar Wind (Planetary Scale)
 
 
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NASA
 
Greenland IceBridge Mission Update
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mary008 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 27 2010 at 8:22pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Turboguy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2010 at 10:50am
Yeah APOD rocks. i've been checking that website every day for years.
 
Mahshadin, did you catch the Hawking's Universe show on Discovery? It was really awesome! I think they're going to make it into a series.
 
If you didn't catch it, it is different than the History Channel's "The Universe" series, which I bought the Blu-Rays.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. - William F. Buckley
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2010 at 5:14pm
TG
 
Yeah there are some very kewl pics in the archives of APOD
 
I dont watch much TV anymore, to much to do, and I spend a lot more time on Internet these days.
 
That sounds Interesting, I am gonna have to look for it on Blue Ray DVD. I just finally upgraded to BlueRay.
 
Still have a functioning Laser Disc in the entertainment center LOLLOL remember those?
 
The%20Latest%20Technology%20by%20Mellotron83.
 
What do you think of Blueray, do you notice a huge diff? I just got one and have not really checked out the diff yet.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Turboguy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2010 at 5:45pm
The difference between DVD and BluRay is literally night and day.

It's literally the difference between old 8mm film and a DVD. My television is a Sony Bravia and when I pop in a Blu Ray it is like I'm looking into a window where people are acting. The television is just as important as the Blu Ray player.

A real functioning laserdisc!?! Oh man! Dragon's Lair and Space Ace anyone?

The Universe from the History Channel is really cool. You should look it up. The new Stephen Hawking one on the Discovery Channel delved into more of the theoretical deals like Wormholes, time dilation and who or how both might or might not work.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. - William F. Buckley
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mary008 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2010 at 6:11pm
 
Please give the best pairing of tv and blue-ray...
 
 
I tried to educate myself... have no idea what 'burn in' is.
 
I went to this site.   (viewing from a distance of 12 to 15 feet )
 
 
 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2010 at 6:11pm
Originally posted by Turboguy Turboguy wrote:

The difference between DVD and BluRay is literally night and day.

It's literally the difference between old 8mm film and a DVD. My television is a Sony Bravia and when I pop in a Blu Ray it is like I'm looking into a window where people are acting. The television is just as important as the Blu Ray player.
 
Well I am going to have to unbox the thing and give it a try, have been putting it off due to the monstrousity of the task of dismatling my entertainment center to get another piece in there, might have to ditch the laser disc LOLLOL
 
I have a pretty high end Plazma, that should suffice

A real functioning laserdisc!?! Oh man! Dragon's Lair and Space Ace anyone?

The Universe from the History Channel is really cool. You should look it up. The new Stephen Hawking one on the Discovery Channel delved into more of the theoretical deals like Wormholes, time dilation and who or how both might or might not work.
 
Ya sounds interesting, I am going to have to figure out these channels, I am sure I have it, the bloody thing goes to like 350 or somthing, switched a couple months ago to Dish Network from basic cable. Just have to figure out how to remember the damn channels now!!~!!
 
Used to be I only had to rember about 5

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Turboguy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2010 at 8:38pm
Your Plasma television has the HDMI input right? The six way cable is good and will get you to right around 1080i, which upon viewing my first time was jaw dropping, but if you want a truly amazing experience go with the HDMI and watch it in 1080p. I think that if you're already got a high end plasma that gets to 1080p or even 1080i, you should be good to go. I don't think you'll have to dismantle everything though, if you've got HDMI's you could feasably pull it out, the blu ray player, and watch a movie, then put it away. The HDMI inputs are usually near the sides of the set for just this reason.

I'm pretty sure that Dish network is already putting out a 1080p signal too and both the Discovery Channel and the History Channel are broadcast in HD. The next Stephen Hawking show is going to be on, on Sunday at eight PM Eastern time. It's called, "Into the Universe" With Stephen Hawking. I heard that each episode took him three or four days to write all the script as his ALS is really making it tough for this giant of a man to talk.

I can only imagine how incredible it'd be if he could talk, just to have a conversation with him. Though I'm sure I'm a neanderthal in comparison, if I could glean just a sliver of his genius it would be a dream come true.

I too remember when there was only five channels. Though I think you're about five or six years older than I (My estimate) I remember BEING the remote control for my dad. "Hey kid, change it to channel 5." then the channel selector went, "Clunk, clunk, clunk!" This was on our ENORMOUS 19 inch t.v.!

Mary I've tried to go with Sony products for my entertainment system. I use a Bravia 46" with a Playstation3 and a 5.1 home theater system. When I turn on the TV, the sound system automatically turns on too.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. - William F. Buckley
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mahshadin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 29 2010 at 5:33pm
Hey TG
My problem is not the wiring (Computer Tech Part Time), it is the mamoth entertainment center which has to be partially broken down so I can move it enough to get new items in the cabinets (Its like a whole wall full--Solid Hardwood). The plazma is not new but has 1080i quality picture using hdmi (atleast that what it says). After reading your comparison I have decided to make it this Saturdays morning project. Do like the Plazma though, very nice picture, and a huge upgrade from what I had before that (Tube).
 
Love Sony video stuff, but my wallet does not. When I bought the Plazma (Samsung) the sony equiv. LCD would have been almost 2 grand more (Other Priorities). The plazma will have to do until it breaks down. I do enjoy running my laptop on the plazma as well, especially with the Astronomy stuff, and planet earth.
 
Ill give you another clue, I grew up with Party Line (Phone). Smile
 
The New Dishnetwork is nice just to damn many channels to remember (0-400), and I really like the whole pause and play feature along with recording. I remember fighting with my VCR to get that rediculous timer to actually work (Missed a critical Packer Viking game once after messing up that timer.
 
Boy things have sure changed in the last 30 years
 
 
 
 
 
l
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Press Release 10-069
Aphids Evolved Special, Surprising Talents

These insect pests pioneered new frontiers in genetics

 

 

April 29, 2010

Contrary to popular belief, aphids are not just sap-sucking, plant-destroying enemies of agriculture. In fact, these pests are genetic pioneers that evolved two unique traits, according to a study that appears in the April 30 issue of the journal Science.

 

First, aphids are, so far, the only animal known to produce essential pigments known as carotenoids. The aphid's pigment-producing ability is unique to the animal kingdom. Other animals, including humans, that need carotenoids cannot produce these essentials themselves; instead, they must obtain carotenoids from food.

 
Why are carotenoids needed by many plants and animals? Because they provide vital support to varied functions, ranging from promoting immunity to reducing cell damage and providing color to fruits and vegetables. For example, carotenoids give tomatoes their red color and flamingoes their pink color. Carotenoids also determine whether aphids are red or green--a color distinction that influences their vulnerabiilty to predators and other threats.
 
 
As for the second unique trait, aphids probably acquired their carotenoid-producing ability through a rare, and perhaps unique, process: millions of years ago, aphids apparently "snatched" carotenoid-producing genes from a carotenoid-producing member of the fungi kingdom, and then snapped those snatched genes into their own genetic code.
 
 
Gene transfer between organisms is not itself a rare phenomenon. However, the fungi-to-aphid gene transfer is the only known gene transfer between members of the fungi kingdom and animal kingdom--which are so evolutionarily distant from one another that it was long thought that never the twain would genetically meet.
 
 
But by busting through kingdom barriers, aphids gained something akin to a "genetic magic wand" that empowered them to produce their own carotenoids. They were thereby freed of the need to scavenge for carotenoid-yielding foods. The result: one less chore on the aphid's "to do" list, and a new self-sufficiency for these insects.
 
 
No one knows what compelled genes to jump from fungi to aphids. But "the transferred fungi genes may have originated from a closely associated fungus, such as one of the fungi that causes diseases in aphids," says Nancy Moran of the University of Arizona, the lead author of the Science paper. "Because the carotenoid-producing genes were the only fungus-related genes that we found in the aphid genes, we think that the fungi-to-aphid transfer was an extremely rare event."

"This is a very big discovery," says Matt Kane of the National Science Foundation. "By recognizing the horizontal transfer of nutritionally important carotenoid genes, Nancy Moran and her colleagues are the first to discover that gene transfer can occur between very distantly related groups of higher, multi-cellular organisms such as fungi and insects."

The foundation for the discovery of the fungi-to-aphid gene transfer was laid when a research team that included Moran constructed the first map of the entire genetic code of aphids. Then, when follow-up studies of the aphid's genetic map were conducted by a different research led by Moran, the presence of carotenoid-producing genes was discovered.

Because a few cases of bacterium-to-animal gene transfer are known and because aphids have close associations with bacterial symbionts, bacteria were initially considered a more likely suspect for genetic swapping with aphids than were the more genetically complex fungi. But after identifying signature similarities between the sequences and arrangements of the aphid and fungi carotenoid-producing genes, Moran's team was able to eliminate bacteria, as well as laboratory contamination, as potential sources for the aphids' carotenoid-producing genes.

-NSF-

 
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Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico

Deepwater%20Horizon%20Trajectory%20Map%20Icon%20April%2030
Jump down to our Oil Spill Downloads section for a full-sized trajectory map.

Updated each evening
Situation: Wednesday 28 April

Workers finished fabricating the containment chamber portion of the collection dome that will be deployed to the sea floor to collect oil as it escapes from the well.  Work will now begin on the piping system that brings the oil to the surface for collection; this method has never been tried at this depth before.  The first rig to be used for drilling a relief or cut-off well is on site and should begin drilling approximately ½ a mile from the well head on Friday.  The relief well will not be complete for several months.  Responders are still figuring out new ways to use Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to try to trigger the blowout preventer (BOP), a series of valves that sits at the well head.   These efforts will continue concurrent with the collection dome and relief well(s).  Good weather today allowed for both skimming operations and aggressive aerial application of dispersants - over 50,000 gallons of dispersant have been applied to the surface oil in the last two days.  Patches of surface oil were captured with fire-retardant boom and ignited (in situ burn).

Current NOAA efforts are focused on: gathering more information about the spill, planning for open water and shoreline remediation, and readying for environmental assessment and response. Natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) activities are now underway. 

  • Winds are forecast to become strong (20+ kts) and blow from the southeast starting tomorrow and continuing through the weekend, which will continue to push surface oil towards shore
  • NOAA oil-spill trajectory analyses indicate that oil continues to move towards shore.
  • 100,000’ of oil-containment booms (or floating barriers) have been deployed as a precaution to protect sensitive areas in the Louisiana area.
  • The effects of oil on sensitive habitats and shorelines in four states (LA, MS, AL, and FL) are being evaluated should oil from the incident make landfall in appreciable quantities
  • NOAA’s Assessment and Restoration Division is evaluating concerns about potential injuries of oil and dispersants to fishes, human use of fisheries, marine mammals, turtles, and sensitive resources
  • Baseline aerial surveys to assess marine life were conducted today with personnel from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), these will continue as needed

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/topic_subtopic_entry.php?RECORD_KEY(entry_subtopic_topic)=entry_id,subtopic_id,topic_id&entry_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=809&subtopic_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=2&topic_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=1

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Gulf%20Oil%20Spill%20Creeps%20Towards%20Mississippi%20Delta%20
  acquired April 29, 2010
Gulf%20Oil%20Spill%20Creeps%20Towards%20Mississippi%20Delta%20

A massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico continued spreading on April 29, 2010, moving perilously close to shore, according to news reports. The U.S. Coast Guard attempted controlled burns on some of the oil to prevent its spread, but had to halt the process due to high winds. Meanwhile, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration constructed a dome-and-pipe system to contain the spread of oil at the sea floor.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a natural-color image of the oil slick just off the Louisiana coast. The top image shows a wide-area view, and the bottom image shows a close-up view of the oil slick (outlined in white in the top image). The oil slick appears as dull gray interlocking comma shapes, one opaque and the other nearly transparent. The northwestern tip of the oil slick almost touches the Mississippi Delta. Sunglint—the mirror-like reflection of the Sun off the water—enchances the oil slick’s visibility.

The oil slick resulted from an explosion that occurred on April 20, 2010, on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Two days after the explosion, the rig sank to the ocean floor, and a pipe connected to the well on the sea floor broke. Oil began leaking from the pipe, The New York Times reported. The following week, the U.S. Coast Guard discovered a new leak, and also found that five times as much oil was pouring from the well as initially assumed, according to Reuters.

Various methods of containing oil spills have been developed, including controlled burns, domes over the oil spill, and the use of remotely operated vehicles to manipulate equipment on the sea floor. The depth of this oil well—5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the ocean surface—has complicated all proposed mitigation efforts. To protect wildlife along the shorelines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, authorities were monitoring possible impacts of oil residue, and considering using cannons to scare birds away from affected areas and using shrimper boats to skim oil.

Instrument:  Terra - MODIS
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