Tag "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration"
2018’s biggest volcanic eruption of sulfur dioxide
At the Ambae volcano’s peak eruption in July, measurements showed the results of a powerful burst of energy that pushed gas and ash to the upper part of the troposphere and into the stratosphere, at an altitude of 10.5 miles.
Sulfur dioxide is short-lived in the atmosphere, but once it penetrates into the stratosphere, where it combines with water vapor to convert to sulfuric acid aerosols, it can last much longer — for weeks, months or even years, depending on the altitude and latitude of injection, said Simon Carn, professor of volcanology at Michigan Tech.
In extreme cases, like the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, these tiny aerosol particles can scatter so much sunlight that they cool the Earth’s surface below.
The map above shows stratospheric sulfur dioxide concentrations on July 28, 2018, as detected by OMPS on the Suomi-NPP satellite.
Ambae (also known as Aoba) was near the peak of its sulfur emissions at the time. “With the Kilauea and Galapagos eruptions, you had continuous emissions of sulfur dioxide over time, but the Ambae eruption was more explosive,” said Simon Carn, professor of volcanology at Michigan Tech.
The resulting sulfuric acid aerosols remained in the stratosphere for about two years, and cooled the Earth’s surface by a range of 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit. “We think to have a measurable climate impact, the eruption needs to produce at least 5 to 10 million tons of SO2,” Carn said.
And while none of the smaller eruptions have had measurable climate effects on their own, they may collectively impact the climate by sustaining the stratospheric aerosol layer. “Without these eruptions, the stratospheric layer would be much, much smaller,” Krotkov said.
9 States Sue ‘Flat-Out Wrong’ Trump Administration Over Seismic Blasting in Atlantic
A coalition of attorneys general from nine states added their clout to a South Carolina-based lawsuit against the Trump administration to block seismic airgun blasting off the Atlantic coast.
What’s more, the release noted, these tests are a precursor to offshore drilling for oil and gas, which will harm coastal and marine resources should a leak occur. “Seismic testing will have dangerous consequences for hundreds of thousands of marine mammals, including endangered species,” Frosh said in the press release. “While the administration continues to place the interests of the fossil fuel industry ahead of our precious natural resources, attorneys general up and down the Atlantic coast will continue to fight these and other efforts to open the waters off our shores to drilling for oil and gas.” “Putting our oceans, marine life and coastal economies at risk for dirty and dangerous offshore drilling is wrong and we are not backing down.
They acted unlawfully and we’re going to stop it.
Oceana is pleased so many states are joining this critical fight.”
Last month, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued five Incidental Harassment Authorizations that permit companies to use airgun blasting in waters off the Atlantic coast.
The loud, continuous and far-reaching noise can damage the hearing and potentially disorientate and kill marine life, displace fish, devastate zooplankton and cause whales to beach.
Blasting can also impact commercial and recreational fishing by decreasing catch rates.
4 ways the melting Arctic is wreaking havoc near you
“It’s been described as rotten.” The Arctic is heading toward irreversible melting and ecosystem destruction, according to the annual Arctic Report Card released on Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
For people living up north, the warming Arctic has immediate effects.
Coastal Arctic communities, including indigenous peoples, are literally losing land as coastal ice (also called “shorefast ice”) melts.
In the United States, these changes in the jet stream are linked to a persistent “ridge” — like a hump in the sky.
Nor’easters and severe cold A strong jet stream ridge is often associated with a trough, an elongated low pressure system.
“I figured the trough should have a name too, because it’s very persistent,” Francis said.
It allows “frigid Arctic air to plunge southward, bringing misery to areas ill-prepared to handle it,” Francis wrote in an article in The Conversation.
This phenomenon is known as “atmospheric blocking,” and it locks weather systems in place.
“It’s like a traffic jam and in the air,” Cohen said.
“It’s a feedback because if you put more of that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that warms up things further.
A Very Quick Introduction to NOAA’s New “Pause-Buster 2” Sea Surface Temperature Dataset ERSST.v5
I will soon be publishing again my Monthly Global Surface (Land+Ocean) and Lower Troposphere Temperature Anomaly posts at my blog ClimateObservations and at WattsUpWithThat .
Because NOAA NCEI and GISS now use the new NOAA ERSST.v5 data in their global land+ocean surface temperature anomaly products, we’ll take a quick look at this new NOAA ERSST dataset.
A couple of years ago, we examined NOAA’s ERSST.v4 “pause-buster” data in a series of six posts, which are summarized and linked in the two final posts of the series: The Oddities in NOAA’s New “Pause-Buster” Sea Surface Temperature Product – An Overview of Past Posts (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
On the Monumental Differences in Warming Rates between Global Sea Surface Temperature Datasets during the NOAA-Picked Global-Warming Hiatus Period of 2000 to 2014 (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
Figure 1 presents the most recent three versions of NOAA’s ERSST sea surface temperature data in annual absolute (not anomaly) form, globally, excluding the polar oceans (60S-60N), for the period of 1998 to 2014, which was one of the periods used by NOAA in their 2015 Karl et al. paper Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus.
With the ERSST.v4 “pause-buster” data, the climate models used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report (stored in the CMIP5 archive) were showing modeled virtual sea surface temperatures that were warmer than the observations for world ocean surfaces.
See the model-data comparison of global (60S-60N) sea surface temperatures in Figure 2, which runs annually for the past 30 years.
For the comparison, I’ve used the multi-model mean of the TOS (Temperature Ocean Surface) from the CMIP5-archived models, which, again, were used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report.
Earth could shrink if black hole experiments fail, astronomer warns By Lauren Fruen, The Sun October 2, 2018 … Professor Lord… Guest essay by Eric Worrall The Dutch court of appeals has upheld a 2015 ruling which demanded that the government cut CO2 emissions by 25% in five years.
Here is an image from the time of this writing: Zoom… Guest “Just Say No” by David Middleton A $240 PER GALLON GAS TAX TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING?
Pollution in the deep sea – are any habitats safe from human disturbance?
What about our ocean’s most remote habitat though – the deep sea?
Oil and natural gas drilling operations are also chronic polluters in the deep sea, resulting in the release of sediments and drilling fluids, and small oil and gas leaks [10].
On our recent cruise to the Cordell Bank region in conjunction with NOAA and Marine Applied Research & Exploration (MARE), we witnessed numerous examples of discarded or abandoned debris including ropes, nets, and fishing lures.
In some cases, lost fishing gear has continued to catch fish with 50-90% efficiency [16], and have been found to continue to operate for years after being discarded [17].
Study Panel on Assessing Potential Ocean Pollutants.
National Academy of Sciences – National Research Council.
Environmental Pollution 182: 495-499.
Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Ghost fishing by lost cod gillnets in the Baltic Sea.
Climate change denial won’t even benefit oil companies soon
Today’s hockey stick graph isn’t a forward projection but a historical record.
The world has been getting hotter, and it will continue to do so.
Carbon that took millions of years to trap has been released into the atmosphere at a rate that is, in geological terms, almost instantaneous.
This meant that when the research showed that our insatiable carbon demand needed to be curbed for the good of the planet, there was a very powerful interest group in place with a vested interest in keeping it going.
We know now that the fossil fuel extraction industry has known about climate change since at least 1977, when James L Black, a scientist at Exxon, gave a presentation to the company’s board detailing his research into global warming.
Climate change isn’t happening, they said, and even if it is happening it’s nothing to do with us, and even if it is something to do with us it would be too expensive to change it.
But not all businesses are energy companies.
Every business and every person lives on the planet now, where costs will rise because of climate change.
For all our talk of climate denial being the “business” position, we’ve strangely ignored the insurance industry, especially the climate research branches of the major reinsurance firms.
Or maybe the path we are on is an inevitable result of an economic system that cannot stop unless it crashes.
Oil and Gas Operations Release 60 Percent More Methane than EPA Thought, Study Finds
A study published Thursday found that U.S. oil and natural gas operations release 60 percent more methane than currently estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a press release from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at University of Colorado, Boulder.
The study, published in Science, calculated yearly methane emissions from the oil and gas industry totaling 13 million metric tons (approximately 14.3 million U.S. tons), mostly from leaks.
In fact, the amount of methane leaked by these operations in 2015 had as much impact on the climate as emissions from coal-fired plants during the same year, undermining the idea that natural gas has a lower carbon footprint than coal. “This study provides the best estimate to date on the climate impact of oil and gas activity in the United States,” co-author and CIRES scientist Jeff Peischl said in the release.
Methane has 80 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere, and methane emissions estimated by the study were equal to 2.3 percent of natural gas production in the U.S.
However, the study’s authors said the problem could be solved if the industry worked to investigate and repair leaks. “Identifying the biggest leakers could substantially reduce emissions that we have measured.” “But the entire industry has to take action to stop the problem,” he said.
They also looked at measurements from midstream facilities, valves, tanks and aerial surveys of oil and gas operations.
The study said that the EPA likely underestimates emissions because it first asks industry permission to take measurements, and so workers likely tighten up any leaks before their visit.
First known manta ray nursery in Florida and new species news!
We somehow need to find out what happens to these juvenile rays that are so rare elsewhere in the worlds oceans.
While big mantas can be friendly, the young are far too often caught in fishing nets to be careless around humans, and deep waters probably hide them from both predation and human investigation.
The 56 miles2 (145 metres2) , and expanding, reserve in NOAA’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary consists of healthy coral reefs, which are rare in the Caribbean these days.
Bleaching has taken place several times, but the corals remain living on most occasions.
Deep water off the reefs provides a refuge and an upsurge of suitable planktonic food for the animals.
Josh Stewart has looked into the 25 years of records since the reserve was formed.
Oil pollution is a major problem in the Gulf, too, as we have often seen in the past.
Josh Stewart has been collecting DNA samples in addition to his nursery work.
Hopefully the relationships of the mantas within the Gulf of Mexico and those that come from the western Atlantic can be worked out.
Then we can tell where species and/or subspecies exist.
Flooding from high tides has doubled in the US in just 30 years
The frequency of coastal flooding from high tides has doubled in the US in just 30 years, with communities near shorelines warned that the next two years are set to be punctuated by particularly severe inundations, as ocean levels continue to rise amid serious global climate change concerns.
Man missing after Maryland flash flood was helping woman rescue her cat Read more Last year there was an average of six flooding days per area across 98 coastal areas monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) – an all-time record.
Known as “sunny day flooding”, these events swamp streets and homes with water simply from the incoming tide, without the aid of a storm.
Noaa said that in 2017 areas across the US north-east and Gulf of Mexico were worst hit, with Boston, Massachusetts, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, both experiencing 22 days of flooding, while Galveston, in Texas, was soaked on 18 different days.
“Breaking of annual flood records is to be expected next year and for decades to come as sea levels rise, and likely at an accelerated rate,” the report states.
“Though year-to-year and regional variability exists, the underlying trend is quite clear: due to sea level rise, the national average frequency of high tide flooding is double what it was 30 years ago.” The Noaa report is “comprehensive” and “clearly illustrates the increasing problems along our coastlines”, said Ben Horton, a sea level rise expert at Rutgers University.
“There is flooding on all our coastlines, places where people live and work.
There needs to be a national response to that.” Last year was marked by three high-profile hurricanes that pummelled the US, triggering flooding that resulted in dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.
Scientists have found that warming temperatures, driven by human activity, is making hurricanes stronger, but it is also exacerbating more chronic nuisance flooding events by pushing up the level of the ocean.
We need to rethink our relationship with the coastline because it’s going to be retreating for the foreseeable future.” Dutton said that south Florida, where weather forecasts in some places now come with tidal warnings, and fish are a regular sight on flooded roads, is particularly vulnerable.
New GOES-17 weather satellite has a cooling problem – may be ‘a loss’
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The nation’s newest weather satellite, launched less than three months ago, has a serious cooling problem that could affect the quality of its pictures.
The trouble is with the GOES-17 satellite’s premier instrument for taking images of hurricanes, wildfires, volcanic eruptions and other natural calamities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.
… “As you can imagine, doing this remotely from 22,000 miles below only looking at the on-orbit data is a challenge,” said Steve Volz, head of NOAA’s satellite and information service.
Volz told reporters the trouble was discovered three weeks ago during the satellite’s routine checkout in orbit.
The infrared channels “are important elements of our observing requirement, and if they are not functioning fully, it is a loss.” The problem is with 13 of the 14 channels in the infrared and near infrared, which are meant to operate at around minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius).
The cooling system is an integral part of the ABI and did not start up properly during the on-orbit checkout.
If efforts to restore the cooling system are unsuccessful, alternative concepts and modes will be considered to maximize the operational utility of the ABI for NOAA’s National Weather Service and other customers.
https://www.goes-r.gov/mission/news.html I’m pretty sure somebody somewhere will figure out a way to blame ‘climate change’ for this.
The GOES-R series of satellites (which includes GOES-16 and the recently launched GOES-17)… A Finnish climate action group is raising $500,000 to carve President Trump’s face into an arctic iceberg according to a press release I received.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most destructive books of the last century, The Population Bomb, by Paul Ehrlich.
