Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘climatology’ category: Page 109

Oct 7, 2020

Hurricane Delta bears striking resemblance to Wilma, the Atlantic’s most intense hurricane on record

Posted by in category: climatology

But in the upper levels, we tend to see the opposite, clockwise spin, which is called a ridge of high pressure. That key component above storms like Delta allows rising air to leave at the top of the storm and flow outward away from the center, known as a chimney effect. It operates like a vacuum and keeps a storm’s engine cycling.

But perhaps the most astonishing similarity to Wilma is Delta’s extremely small eye, which is only 4 miles across. Wilma had the smallest eye on record in the Atlantic — 2.3 miles in diameter. Meteorologists believe this is a key reason Wilma was able to become so strong, so fast.

The science is rather simple: The smaller the eye, the faster the winds can circulate around the center.

Oct 4, 2020

#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Satellite Technologies Use To Monitor Climate Change and Manage Environmental Disasters

Posted by in categories: climatology, economics, existential risks, habitats, satellites, sustainability

The recent 2020 US West Coast wildfire has opened infernos, as it ravaged hundreds of homes and charred hundreds of neighborhoods. On September 10, 2020, CNN announced that the Creek Fire had taken more than 166,00 acres after destroying 360 structures in Central California, Amidst a state emergency, firefighters had to defeat the “beast” that turned the scenery to a similar fiction movies scene on a doomsday. Wildfire causes environmental disasters that were attributed by many scientists to climate change. The preparedness, detection, and management of wildfires and other environmental disasters, that affected the environment hinge on satellite technologies, essentially, the Remote Sensing of sea surfaces and land areas, and the civil space-based Earth Observation and its applications. Such space-based technologies are deployed to assess, monitor, and manage local, regional, and large-scale transboundary environmental issues that impact the societies, economies, and ecosystems. Thanks to its large areas’ data collection and high-frequency capabilities Earth Observation, in particular, has become a powerful tool to monitor the terrestrial environment and manage environmental disasters as it be addressed in this article.

Satellite technologies have been used to understand climate change better to find solutions to mitigate its deteriorating consequences, such as hurricanes, droughts, rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, wildfire, and floods. Scientists relied upon various observation systems and satellite technologies, networks of weather balloons, buoys, and thermometer, to collect climate change’s evidence from the depths of the oceans to the top of Earth’s atmosphere. For instance, EO is relied upon to map the greenhouse gases. Earth Observation (EO) monitors the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, the second most abundant greenhouse gas component after water vapor, satellite monitored through water management, and weather forecast [1]. Public and private entities harnessed spectroscopy and satellites to monitor externalities data from various sources.

Oct 1, 2020

Revolutionary Universal Habitats for Earth and Space

Posted by in categories: climatology, habitats, holograms, space

This video shows how holographic storage works, using green light to write data as a persistent hologram inside an optical crystal. The data can then be read…How does holographic storage work?


See a home you can live in, make a living out, and grow most of your food in too, the ultimate bug-in or bug-out location — on Mars — here on Earth, or just about anywhere! That is why I call it my Universal Habitat. This is a very low ecological footprint home that can be beautiful, almost no energy cost to maintain, could be built affordably, and be resistant to many natural and man-made disasters such as tornadoes, fire, radiation, and worse. This is the ultimate self-sufficient bunker/fortress.

Continue reading “Revolutionary Universal Habitats for Earth and Space” »

Sep 28, 2020

NASA Doubles Down On Nuclear Fusion Ambitions

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

As climate change mandates loom, a new breakthrough from NASA could offer a pathway to commercial nuclear fusion.

Sep 28, 2020

Sediment Discovered in Texas Cave Upends Meteorite Explanation for Global Cooling

Posted by in categories: chemistry, climatology

Researchers say cooling 13,000 years ago is coincident with major volcanic eruption.

Texas researchers from the University of Houston, Baylor University and Texas A&M University have discovered evidence for why the earth cooled dramatically 13,000 years ago, dropping temperatures by about 3 degrees Centigrade.

The evidence is buried in a Central Texas cave, where horizons of sediment have preserved unique geochemical signatures from ancient volcanic eruptions — signatures previously mistaken for extraterrestrial impacts, researchers say.

Sep 24, 2020

This is What Mars Colonies Could Be Like in 2035

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, climatology, space

As earth becomes less habitable due to the climate emergency, The Astroland Agency are working out how humans could colonize Mars by 2035. Before the pandemic, we spent time with them to learn how that would work.

About VICE:
The Definitive Guide To Enlightening Information. From every corner of the planet, our immersive, caustic, ground-breaking and often bizarre stories have changed the way people think about culture, crime, art, parties, fashion, protest, the internet and other subjects that don’t even have names yet. Browse the growing library and discover corners of the world you never knew existed. Welcome to VICE.

Continue reading “This is What Mars Colonies Could Be Like in 2035” »

Sep 24, 2020

The strange storms on Jupiter

Posted by in categories: climatology, mathematics, space

At the south pole of Jupiter lurks a striking sight—even for a gas giant planet covered in colorful bands that sports a red spot larger than the earth. Down near the south pole of the planet, mostly hidden from the prying eyes of humans, is a collection of swirling storms arranged in an unusually geometric pattern.

Since they were first spotted by NASA’s Juno space probe in 2019, the storms have presented something of a mystery to scientists. The storms are analogous to hurricanes on Earth. However, on our planet, hurricanes do not gather themselves at the poles and twirl around each other in the shape of a pentagon or hexagon, as do Jupiter’s curious storms.

Now, a research team working in the lab of Andy Ingersoll, Caltech professor of planetary science, has discovered why Jupiter’s storms behave so strangely. They did so using math derived from a proof written by Lord Kelvin, a British mathematical physicist and engineer, nearly 150 years ago.

Sep 23, 2020

Solarpunk: Post-Industrial Design and Aesthetics

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

Introduction: In recent years a futurist aesthetic movement has emerged in response to renewed public concern for the environment and a seeming lack of reflection of that concern in much contemporary art and design. Deriving its name from similar aesthetic movements such as Cyberpunk and Steampunk, its roots lay in various eco/climate science fiction and Post-Industrial futurist literature and is considered ‘punk’ in the sense that it is reactionary, and in opposition, to both the naive corporate utopianism that dominated the 20th century and the dystopianism that emerged in its wake by the end of that century, persisting to the present. We now live in an era where pragmatism is a radical stance. Thus Solarpunk seeks to cultivate a positive, hopeful, vision of a future rooted in technologies and culture of sustainability, yet in the context of what it acknowledges will be dramatic changes in our way of life due to Global Warming and the environmental malfeasance of the past, the transition to a renewables-based infrastructure, and the collapse of Industrial Age paradigms. A culture that has weathered the dramatic disruptions coming with the end of the Industrial Age, taken its sometimes bitter lessons from that, and found a way forward.

What makes Solarpunk ‘punk’ is an underlying activist/revolutionary narrative it shares with the earlier punk movements tracing its origins to the narrative of one of Science Fiction’s earliest ‘antiheroes’; Captain Nemo of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Long mischaracterized in film, the original character of Nemo is an Indian victim of European colonialism who is radicalized by the murder of his family by colonialists. He then appropriates and improves upon the technology of the colonialist powers not just to fight against them but to create a model egalitarian society of the future in the secret haven of the underwater underworld, beyond the reach of those colonial powers. Thus he becomes the prototype tech-hero, turning the oppressors/dominators technology against them and repurposing it for the benefit of the rest of society.

Sep 21, 2020

Airbus Unveils Three Designs for Hydrogen-Powered Planes

Posted by in category: climatology

A third — the most out-there among the three — is designed to seat 200 passengers. The concept merges the wings with the main body, creating a massive open space. “The exceptionally wide fuselage opens up multiple options for hydrogen storage and distribution, and for cabin layout,” an Airbus statement reads.

Airbus is hoping to drum up excitement around the idea of powering the planes of tomorrow using hydrogen gas. “The transition to hydrogen, as the primary power source for these concept planes, will require decisive action from the entire aviation ecosystem,” Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said in the statement.

“I strongly believe that the use of hydrogen — both in synthetic fuels and as a primary power source for commercial aircraft — has the potential to significantly reduce aviation’s climate impact,” he added.

Sep 20, 2020

Geoengineering Is the Only Solution to Our Climate Calamities

Posted by in categories: climatology, engineering

Altering Earth’s geophysical environment is a moon shot—and it will be the only way to reverse the damage done. It’s time to take it more seriously.