Laboratory Equipment

Field Study Aims to Better Severe Weather Forecasting

Purdue Univ. professors and students will intercept storms as part of a major field project to improve predictions of severe weather and offer earlier warnings to those in its path.

Purdue professors of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences Jeff Trapp and Michael Baldwin, and graduate students Joe Woznicki and Logan Dawson are part of the National Science Foundation-funded Mesoscale Predictability Experiment, or MPEX. The project runs from May 15 to June 15 across the Great Plains.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/field-study-aims-better-severe-weather-forecasting

Natural Disturbances Affect Climate Response Strategies

Fires and hurricanes are only two examples of natural disturbances that drastically affect millions of people worldwide. Now, scientists are considering how these events might limit opportunities for climate mitigation as well. A team of scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, working at the Joint Global Change Research Institute at Maryland, found that strategies to alleviate the impacts of climate change will need to account for future land and atmospheric disturbances that impact forests. This study is the first to quantify the effect of future natural disturbances on climate mitigation strategies.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/natural-disturbances-affect-climate-response-strategies

Cassini Views Large Saturn Hurricane

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn’s north pole.

In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph (150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/cassini-views-large-saturn-hurricane

‘Eyes’ in Sky to Monitor China’s Air Pollution

Scientists will be able to better monitor haze and air pollution that chokes cities like Beijing after the launch of a high-resolution earth observation satellite.

China is stepping up its use of remote sensing technology and will analyze data from satellites sent into orbit to get more comprehensive and accurate information about its air pollution, according to scientists attending the ongoing 35th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment in Beijing.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/eyes-sky-monitor-chinas-air-pollution

Humidity Warms Drinks Faster

In spring a person’s thoughts turn to important matters, like how best to keep your drink cold on a hot day. Though this quest is probably as old as civilization, Univ. of Washington climate scientists have provided new insight.

It turns out that in sultry weather condensation on the outside of a canned beverage doesn’t just make it slippery: those drops can provide more heat than the surrounding air, meaning drinks warm more than twice as much in humid weather compared to in dry heat. In typical summer weather in New Orleans, heat released by condensation warms the drink by six F in five minutes.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/humidity-warms-drinks-faster

Communities Work to Hold Back Storm-Swollen Waterways

A tiny, flood-prone community breathed easier after shoring up a makeshift levee holding back the rain-swollen Mississippi River. Other Midwest communities scrambled to fend off waterways that threatened to overflow as more storms marched through the region.

Volunteers hustled earlier this week to shore up weak spots in a levee hastily built last week to stop the Mississippi from overrunning the flood-weary hamlet of Clarksville. At times toiling in heavy rain, crews built a second wall of dirt and sandbags behind the original barrier and now calm has been restored. The Mississippi appeared to be receding, ever so slowly, from the community 70 miles north of St. Louis.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/communities-work-hold-back-storm-swollen-waterways

Asian Monsoon is Getting Predictable

For much of Asia, the pace of life is tuned to rhythms of monsoons.

The summer rainy season is especially important for securing the water and food supplies for more than a billion people. Its variations can mean the difference between drought and flood. Now a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego-led study reports on a crucial connection that could drastically improve the ability of forecasters to reliably predict the monsoon a few months in advance.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/asian-monsoon-getting-predictable

Cuts Lead Meteorological Program to Seek Donations

The main source of online weather training for hundreds of thousands of forecasters, emergency managers and others in the U.S. and abroad is turning to donations from users in order to try to stay in service.

The COMET Program, managed by the Univ. Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), is taking this unprecedented step in the face of a funding shortfall of nearly $2 million. The deficit reflects this year’s government sequestration as well as further federal budget cuts anticipated in fiscal year 2014.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/cuts-lead-meteorological-program-seek-donations

Greenhouse Gases Make China Even Hotter

China, the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, is directly feeling the human-caused heat of global warming, scientists conclude in the first study to link the burning of fossil fuels to one country’s rise in its daily temperature spikes.

China emits more of the greenhouse gas than the next two biggest carbon polluters — the U.S. and India — combined. And its emissions keep soaring by about 10 percent per year.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/greenhouse-gases-make-china-even-hotter

Spring Rains Help Granaries but Cause Gulf ‘Dead Zone’

The most serious ongoing water pollution problem in the Gulf of Mexico originates not from oil rigs, as many people believe, but rainstorms and fields of corn and soybeans a thousand miles away in the Midwest. An expert on that problem — the infamous Gulf of Mexico “Dead Zone” — today called for greater awareness of the connections between rainfall and agriculture in the Midwest and the increasingly severe water quality problems in the gulf.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/spring-rains-help-granaries-cause-gulf-%E2%80%98dead-zone%E2%80%99

Sandy Prompts Change in Storm Warnings

Responding to criticism after Superstorm Sandy, the National Hurricane Center says it will change the way it warns people about tropical storms that morph into something else.

At the height of Sandy, as the hurricane knocked on the Northeast coast, forecasters at the center stopped issuing advisories and warnings because the storm merged with two cold-weather systems, lost its tropical characteristics and mutated into a hybrid megastorm.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/sandy-prompts-change-storm-warnings

Punxsutawney Phil Charged with a Felony Over Forecast

Famed groundhog Punxsutawney Phil might want to go back into hibernation. Authorities in still-frigid Ohio have issued an “indictment” of the furry rodent, who predicted an early spring when he didn’t see his shadow after emerging from his western Pennsylvania lair on Feb. 2.

“Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that spring would come early,” Mike Gmoser, the prosecutor in southwestern Ohio’s Butler County, writes in an official-looking indictment. Gmoser writes that Punxsutawney Phil is charged with misrepresentation of spring, which constitutes a felony “against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio.”

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/punxsutawney-phil-charged-felony-over-forecast

Curiosity Sleeps to Avoid Solar Blast

Curiosity hunkered down after the sun unleashed a blast that raced toward Mars.

While the hardy rover was designed to withstand punishing space weather, its handlers decided to power it down as a precaution since it suffered a recent computer problem. “We’re being more careful,” project manager Richard Cook of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory says.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/curiosity-sleeps-avoid-solar-blast

Arctic Ice Loss Increased Superstorm Sandy’s Violence

If you believe that last October’s Superstorm Sandy was a freak of nature – the confluence of unusual meteorological, atmospheric and celestial events – think again.

Cornell and Rutgers researchers report in the March issue of Oceanography that the severe loss of summertime Arctic sea ice – attributed to greenhouse warming – appears to enhance Northern Hemisphere jet stream meandering, intensify Arctic air mass invasions toward middle latitudes and increase the frequency of atmospheric blocking events like the one that steered Hurricane Sandy west into the densely populated New York City area.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/arctic-ice-loss-increased-superstorm-sandys-violence