Ball Aerospace commercialise a design for geostationary STORM

Tempus Global, a commercial venture that aims to perform hyperspectral sounding from geostationary orbit, has contracted with Ball Aerospace to build sensors that would be hosted on third-party satellites. 

Credit: Tempus Global

Tempus Global Data, the Ogden, Utah-based firm that last year took over an effort to commercialize a Utah State University design for a geostationary-orbiting weather sensor, has contracted with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. to build eight copies of the sensor, the company announced in a Jan. 7 press release.

Under the arrangement, Ball would build six Sounding & Tracking Observatory for Regional Meteorology (STORM) sensors to fly as hosted payloads on geostationary satellites, and possibly two more that would fly on dedicated satellites, Tempus said in its press release.

Financial terms of the deal, under which Utah State would support Ball’s effort, were not disclosed.

Tempus spokesman Mark Hurst said the company has “closed an initial round” of financing for its ambitious project but declined to provide details.

“Our target date for first launch is early 2018. We don’t have a specific start date on building STORM 1 but it is roughly a three year build for the first sensor,” Hurst wrote in a Jan. 14 email.

The STORM sensor was originally developed by Utah State for a U.S. government mission that ultimately was canceled.

Tempus emerged as the university’s commercialisation partner last year after a similar arrangement with GeoMetWatch, which hoped to deploy a global network of STORM sensors and sell the data to weather agencies and other organizations, collapsed in acrimony.

The first STORM sensor was supposed to fly as a hosted payload aboard a satellite owned by AsiaSat of Hong Kong, but that deal fell through after GeoMetWatch was unable to secure the necessary financing in time to meet the satellite’s production schedule.

In a separate press release issued Jan. 13, Tempus said it had entered into a strategic partnership with Science and Technology Corp. (STC) of Silver Spring, Maryland, to develop STORM data products.

STC is a technology company whose government clients include the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) weather satellite and National Weather Service divisions.

Keck II telescope: Vast Stormy weather on Uranus

Massive storms on Uranus captured August 5 and 6, 2014 as seen by Keck II telescope. 

Both images were taken by Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Larry Sromovosky and Pat Fry (U. Wisconsin), and Heidi Hammel (AURA) using the near-infrared camera NIRC2 with adaptive optics on the 10-m Keck II telescope at a wavelength of 1.6 micron.

Weather on any planet can be quite unpredictable. As hurricanes threaten the Aloha State, astronomers working at W. M. Keck II telescope on the island of Hawaii were surprised by the appearance of gigantic swirling storm systems on the distant planet Uranus.

During the Voyager encounter with Uranus in 1986, only a scant handful of dim clouds were seen in its atmosphere.

When the planet approached equinox in 2007 (i.e., when the Sun stood high above its equator), large storms developed on the planet, yet most of these faded.

In the past few days, however, astronomers were surprised by a multitude of bright storms on the planet, including one monstrous feature.

"We are always anxious to see that first image of the night of any planet or satellite, as we never know what it might have in store for us," said Imke de Pater, professor at UC Berkeley and team leader.

"This extremely bright feature we saw on UT 6 August 2014 reminds me of a similarly bright storm we saw on Uranus's southern hemisphere during the years leading up to and at equinox".

"Even after years of observing, a new picture of Uranus from Keck II telescope can stop me in my tracks and make me say Wow!," said Heidi Hammel, a member of the observing team.

Since the 2007 equinox, Uranus's northern pole has been coming into view, and the south pole is no longer visible.

The bright feature de Pater refers to was known as the "Berg", because this feature was visible just below the polar haze, and resembled an iceberg peeled off an ice-shelf.

The Berg oscillated in latitude between southern latitudes of 32 and 36 degrees since 2000, and perhaps dated back to the Voyager era (1986).

In 2004 it became much brighter; in 2005 it started to migrate towards the equator and became a very powerful storm system.

In 2009, when it came to within a few degrees of the equator, it dissipated.

The present storm is even brighter than the Berg. Its morphology is rather similar, and the team expects it may also be tied to a vortex in the deeper atmosphere.

From near-infrared images taken at 2.2 micron, the team already determined that the storm must reach high altitudes; they will conduct calculations to determine the precise altitude, but based upon its brightness at those wavelengths the team expects it to reach altitudes near the tropopause (the boundary in Uranus's atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere).

NOAA Hurricane Research Storm Drones

In this April 29, 2014 photo, Joe Cione, who studies how storms interact with the ocean at the (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) NOAA's Hurricane Research Division in Miami, displays a drone he hopes to use this hurricane season for research. 

NOAA researchers plan to test five or six drones in the peak of hurricane season that will be transmitting data that could help forecasters understand what makes some storms fizzle while others strengthen into monsters. AP Photo/J Pat Carter

The point where the roiling ocean meets the fury of a hurricane's winds may hold the key to improving storm intensity forecasts, but it's nearly impossible for scientists to see.

That may change this summer, thanks to post-Hurricane Sandy federal funding and a handful of winged drones that can spend hours spiraling in a hurricane's dark places.

The drones will be transmitting data that could help forecasters understand what makes some storms fizzle while others strengthen into monsters.

Researchers at the NOAA's plan to test five or six drones in the peak of hurricane season.

The $1.25 million project is among a slew of other NOAA hurricane research funded by last year's Sandy supplemental bill that authorised $60 billion for disaster relief agencies.

NASA's Aqua Sees Massive US Winter Storm

On January 2, 2014, NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the United States multiple times, allowing the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board to capture this true-colour image of a massive winter storm moving up the eastern seaboard. 

Another image taken the same day by the GOES-13 satellite shows moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold air from Canada moving across the U.S. (Shown below)

Very cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills are moving in behind the system. 

The next storm is forming, and will bring blizzard conditions to the northern Plains Friday Night into Saturday. 

Extreme wind chills to -55 F are possible in the northern Plains this weekend. 

Credit: NASA/NOAA

NASA Cassini: Massive Saturn Storm Pulls Water and Ammonia Ices from the Depths

This series of images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the development of the largest storm seen on the planet since 1990. 

These true-colour and composite near-true-color views chronicle the storm from its start in late 2010 through mid-2011, showing how the distinct head of the storm quickly grew large but eventually became engulfed by the storm’s tail. 

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Space Science Institute

Once every 30 years or so, or roughly one Saturnian year, a monster storm rips across the northern hemisphere of the ringed planet.

In 2010, the most recent and only the sixth giant storm on Saturn observed by humans began stirring. It quickly grew to superstorm proportions, reaching 15,000 kilometers (more than 9,300 miles) in width and visible to amateur astronomers on Earth as a great white spot dancing across the surface of the planet.

Now, thanks to near-infrared spectral measurements taken by NASA's Cassini orbiter and analysis of near-infrared colour signatures by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Saturn's superstorm is helping scientists flesh out a picture of the composition of the planet's atmosphere at depths typically obscured by a thick high-altitude haze.

The key finding: cloud particles at the top of the great storm are composed of a mix of three substances: water ice, ammonia ice, and an uncertain third constituent that is possibly ammonium hydrosulphide.

According to the Wisconsin researchers, the observations are consistent with clouds of different chemical compositions existing side-by-side, although a more likely scenario is that the individual cloud particles are composed of two or all three of the materials.

Writing in the current edition (Sept. 9, 2013) of the journal Icarus, a team led by UW-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center planetary scientists Lawrence Sromovsky, and including Kevin Baines and Patrick Fry, reports the discovery of the icy forms of water and ammonia.

Water in the form of ice has never before been observed on Saturn.

"We think this huge thunderstorm is driving these cloud particles upward, sort of like a volcano bringing up material from the depths and making it visible from outside the atmosphere," explains Sromovsky, a senior scientist at UW-Madison and an expert on planetary atmospheres.

"The upper haze is so optically pretty thick that it is only in the stormy regions where the haze is penetrated by powerful updrafts that you can see evidence for the ammonia ice and the water ice. Those storm particles have an infrared colour signature that is very different from the haze particles in the surrounding atmosphere."

"The water could only have risen from below, driven upward by powerful convection originating deep in the atmosphere. The water vapor condenses and freezes as it rises. It then likely becomes coated with more volatile materials like ammonium hydrosulfide and ammonia as the temperature decreases with their ascent," Sromovsky adds.

The interesting effect, he notes, is that in Saturn's massive storm, at least, the observations can be matched by having particles of mixed composition, or clouds of water ice existing side-by-side with clouds of ammonia ice.

In the latter scenario, water ice would make up 22 percent of the cloud head and ammonia ice 55 percent.

The remaining fraction would be made up by the third constituent, which though less certain, is believed to be ammonia hydrosulfide.

"Up until now, there have been no quantitative calculations of spectra for cloud structures and compositions that matched the observed spectrum of an actual storm cloud feature," says Sromovsky.

Journal Reference:
L.A. Sromovsky, K.H. Baines, P.M. Fry. Saturn’s Great Storm of 2010–2011: Evidence for ammonia and water ices from analysis of VIMS spectra. Icarus, 2013; 226 (1): 402 DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2013.05.043

NASA Cassini Image: Saturn Storm's Explosive Power

This set of images from NASA's Cassini mission shows the turbulent power of a monster Saturn storm. 

The visible-light image in the back, obtained on Feb. 25, 2011, by Cassini's imaging camera, shows the turbulent clouds churning across the face of Saturn.

The inset infrared image, obtained a day earlier, by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, shows the dredging up of water and ammonia ices from deep in Saturn's atmosphere.

This was the first time water ice was detected in Saturn's atmosphere. The storm, first detected by Cassini's radio and plasma wave subsystem in December 2011, churned around the planet in a band around 33 degrees north.

Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SSI/ Univ. of Arizona/ Univ. of Wisconsin

Read the full article on NASA JPL Photojournal site

'Mars Rat' Takes Internet by Storm - Mars Curiosity Rover

A Mars rock that bears a passing resemblance to a rodent is scuttling across the Internet with gusto, even inspiring some fans to set up a Twitter account in its name.

UFO buffs spotted the purported "Mars rat" in a panoramic photo snapped in September 2012 by NASA's Curiosity rover. Zooming in on a portion of the image reveals what appears to be a rodent crouching between two rocks, its nose to the ground.

"It's a cute rodent on Mars. Note its lighter-color upper and lower eyelids, its nose and cheek areas, its ear, its front leg and stomach," Scott Waring wrote at UFO Sightings Daily back in December. "Looks similar to a squirrel camouflaged in the stones and sand by its colors."

'Hot spots' ride a merry-go-round on Jupiter

In this series of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, a dark, rectangular hot spot (top) interacts with a line of vortices that approaches from on the upper-right side (second panel). 

The interaction distorts the shape of the hot spot (third panel), leaving it diminished (bottom). 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/GSFC

In the swirling canopy of Jupiter's atmosphere, cloudless patches are so exceptional that the big ones get the special name "hot spots."

Exactly how these clearings form and why they're only found near the planet's equator have long been mysteries.

Now, using images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists have found new evidence that hot spots in Jupiter's atmosphere are created by a Rossby wave, a pattern also seen in Earth's atmosphere and oceans.

The team found the wave responsible for the hot spots glides up and down through layers of the atmosphere like a carousel horse on a merry-go-round.

"This is the first time anybody has closely tracked the shape of multiple hot spots over a period of time, which is the best way to appreciate the dynamic nature of these features," said the study's lead author, David Choi, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The paper is published online in the April issue of the journal Icarus.

Choi and his colleagues made time-lapse movies from hundreds of observations taken by Cassini during its flyby of Jupiter in late 2000, when the spacecraft made its closest approach to the planet.

The movies zoom in on a line of hot spots between one of Jupiter's dark belts and bright white zones, roughly 7 degrees north of the equator.

Covering about two months (in Earth time), the study examines the daily and weekly changes in the sizes and shapes of the hot spots, each of which covers more area than North America, on average.

Much of what scientists know about hot spots came from NASA's Galileo mission, which released an atmospheric probe that descended into a hot spot in 1995. This was the first, and so far only, in-situ investigation of Jupiter's atmosphere.

"Galileo's probe data and a handful of orbiter images hinted at the complex winds swirling around and through these hot spots, and raised questions about whether they fundamentally were waves, cyclones or something in between," said Ashwin Vasavada, a paper co-author who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and who was a member of the Cassini imaging team during the Jupiter flyby. "Cassini's fantastic movies now show the entire life cycle and evolution of hot spots in great detail."

Because hot spots are breaks in the clouds, they provide windows into a normally unseen layer of Jupiter's atmosphere, possibly all the way down to the level where water clouds can form.

In pictures, hot spots appear shadowy, but because the deeper layers are warmer, hot spots are very bright at the infrared wavelengths where heat is sensed; in fact, this is how they got their name.

One hypothesis is that hot spots occur when big drafts of air sink in the atmosphere and get heated or dried out in the process. but the surprising regularity of hot spots has led some researchers to suspect there is an atmospheric wave involved.

Typically, eight to 10 hot spots line up, roughly evenly spaced, with dense white plumes of cloud in between.

This pattern could be explained by a wave that pushes cold air down, breaking up any clouds, and then carries warm air up, causing the heavy cloud cover seen in the plumes. Computer modeling has strengthened this line of reasoning.

From the Cassini movies, the researchers mapped the winds in and around each hot spot and plume, and examined interactions with vortices that pass by, in addition to wind gyres, or spiraling vortices, that merge with the hot spots.

To separate these motions from the jet stream in which the hot spots reside, the scientists also tracked the movements of small "scooter" clouds, similar to cirrus clouds on Earth.

This provided what may be the first direct measurement of the true wind speed of the jet stream, which was clocked at about 300 to 450 mph (500 to 720 kilometers per hour) -- much faster than anyone previously thought. The hot spots amble at the more leisurely pace of about 225 mph (362 kilometers per hour).

By teasing out these individual movements, the researchers saw that the motions of the hot spots fit the pattern of a Rossby wave in the atmosphere.

On Earth, Rossby waves play a major role in weather. For example, when a blast of frigid Arctic air suddenly dips down and freezes Florida's crops, a Rossby wave is interacting with the polar jet stream and sending it off its typical course.

The wave travels around our planet but periodically wanders north and south as it goes.

The wave responsible for the hot spots also circles the planet west to east, but instead of wandering north and south, it glides up and down in the atmosphere. The researchers estimate this wave may rise and fall 15 to 30 miles (24 to 50 kilometers) in altitude.

The new findings should help researchers understand how well the observations returned by the Galileo probe extend to the rest of Jupiter's atmosphere. "And that is another step in answering more of the questions that still surround hot spots on Jupiter," said Choi.

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

Storm Intensity at Ikaria Island

Storm Intensity at Ikaria Island, Greece.

Credit: Chris Kotsiopoulos

NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory: Hurricane Michael Reaches Category 3

With maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, Hurricane Michael is the first Atlantic storm of the 2012 season to reach Category 3 intensity.

The storm is shown here in high resolution infrared imagery from the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite taken on September 6, 2012 at 04:22z. 

Hurricane Michael swelled to the first category three storm of 2012 early Thursday as it churned far from land in the middle of the Atlantic, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

As of 0900 GMT the hurricane was packing winds of up to 115 miles (185 kilometers) per hour as it swirled more than 1,000 miles southwest of the Azores archipelago, the forecasters said.

There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, and the NHC said Michael may begin gradually weakening by Friday.

Hurricane Leslie, a category one storm cycling closer to North America, continued moving northward and was projected to pass over or near Bermuda on Sunday, but no warnings or watches have been issued, the NHC said.

Lightning bolt striking through a Rainbow

Stormchaser Travis Heying photographed a lightning bolt striking through a rainbow over the Little Arkansas River near his home in Wichita, Kansas.

Fortunately, this spectacle happened right on his doorstep.

Picture: TRAVIS HEYING / MCT / CATERS NEWS

Hurricane Isaac reaches shore

A powerful storm bearing down on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans is now a hurricane, US forecasters say.

Hurricane Isaac boasts sustained winds at least 75mph (120km/h), and is likely to make landfall by Tuesday night.

The storm is expected to hit New Orleans seven years after the much stronger Hurricane Katrina.

US President Barack Obama has warned residents in the path of the storm they should not "tempt fate" and should heed evacuation warnings.

At 11:20 CDT (16:20 GMT), the storm was 160 miles (250km) south-east of New Orleans, moving north-west at 10mph (17km/h).

Mr Obama has declared an emergency in Louisiana, allowing federal funds to be released to local authorities.

"As we prepare for Isaac to hit, I want to encourage all residents of the Gulf Coast to listen to your local officials and follow their directions - including if they tell you to evacuate," Mr Obama said on Tuesday.

Speaking from the White House, he added: "Now is not the time to tempt fate. Now is not the time to dismiss official warnings. You need to take this seriously."
 
Storm surge
Shortly after Isaac reached hurricane status, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to make a full emergency declaration for the state.

He told reporters that a declaration made on Monday did not allow for the reimbursement for state's expenses from the storm.

"We have learned from past experiences that you cannot wait and you have to push the federal bureaucracy," Mr Jindal, who cancelled an appearance at the Republican National Convention because of the storm, said.

Isaac has killed at least 24 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and caused significant flooding and damage in the Caribbean.

It largely bypassed the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, but prompted a day-long delay to proceedings there.

The National Hurricane Center warned that a possible combined "storm surge" and high tide would cause flooding in coastal areas along the Gulf Coast.

Water would potentially reach 6-12ft (1.8-3.7m) above ground in south-west Louisiana and Mississippi, 4-8ft in Alabama and 3-6ft in south-central Louisiana.

Isaac is also threatening heavy rainfall of as much as 20in (51cm) in isolated spots, and could spark possible tornadoes along the northern Gulf Coast.

Hurricane warnings are in place for a swathe of land 400 miles (645km) wide, from Morgan City in Louisiana to the Florida-Alabama state line.

Cumulonimbus storm cloud over Beijing

A jet plane flies past a mushroom-like cumulonimbus storm cloud over Beijing, China

Picture: Imaginechina / Rex Features

NASA ESA's Cassini Captures Saturn's Massive Storm

This false-colour mosaic from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the tail of Saturn's huge northern storm.

See PIA14905 to learn more about this storm and watch its development over several months.

Earlier in the Cassini mission, the spacecraft chronicled a smaller storm in the southern hemisphere called the "Dragon Storm."

See PIA06197 to learn more about that storm and to see a similar, false-colour view.

The head of the storm is beyond the horizon in this view. Saturn's atmosphere and its rings are shown here in a false colour composite made from 12 images taken in near- infrared light through filters that are sensitive to varying degrees of methane absorption.

• Red and orange colours in this view indicate clouds that are deep in the atmosphere.
• Yellow and green coloors, most noticeable near the top of the view, indicate intermediate clouds.
• White and blue indicate high clouds and haze. 

The rings appear as a thin horizontal line of bright blue because they are outside of the atmosphere and not affected by methane absorption.

The oval in the upper left of this image that appears slightly blue is the same hole in the deep clouds of the planet's atmosphere that can be seen near the tail in a larger false-color mosaic, PIA14903.

The blue colour comes from the high haze overlying the hole.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ring plane. The shadow of the moon Enceladus is visible on the planet in the lower left of the image.

The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light.

The images filtered at 890 nanometers are projected as blue. The images filtered at 728 nanometers are projected as green, and images filtered at 752 nanometers are projected as red.

The images were taken on Jan. 12, 2011, over about one hour at a distance of approximately 684,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 52 degrees.

The images were re-projected to the same viewing geometry, so that scale in this final mosaic is 76 miles (122 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations centre is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.

Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Monster Storm Rages on Saturn

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The head of Saturn's huge northern storm is well established in this view captured early in the storm's development by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in late 2010.

Saturn's atmosphere and its rings are shown here in a false colour composite made from three images taken in near infrared light through filters that are sensitive to varying degrees of methane absorption.

Red and orange colours in this view indicate clouds that are deep in the atmosphere.

Yellow and green colours, most noticeable near the top of the view, indicate intermediate clouds.

White and blue indicate high clouds and haze. The rings appear as a thin horizontal line of bright blue because they are outside of the atmosphere and not affected by methane absorption.

This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from just below the ringplane.

Ferocious Alaska Storm: NOAA Satellite View

The massive storm bearing down on Alaska was caught by infrared instruments on a NOAA satellite at 9 a.m. ET on Nov. 8.

The monster storm bearing down on the west coast of Alaska was caught by the infrared sensors on board a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite.

This NOAA interactive map shows the regions affected.

The storm is predicted to bring hurricane-force winds and high waves through the Bering Strait and along the Alaskan coast.

Coastal flood warnings are in effect for much of western Alaska, and some coastal villages evacuated last night (Nov. 8), according to news reports.

"This will be extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm of an epic magnitude rarely experienced," read a statement from the NWS. "All people in the area should take precautions to safeguard their lives and property."

The storm could be one of the most severe Bering Sea storms in nearly 40 years.

The storm could be similar to a 1974 storm that socked the state, but sea ice is lower in today's warmer world, providing no protection along the coast, according to the NWS.

 CREDIT: NOAA

Bering Sea: Massive storm threatens Alaska

An unusual Bering Sea storm packing hurricane-force winds and 35ft waves is moving rapidly towards the western Alaska coastline.

The storm is travelling at 60mph and has reached the western Aleutian Islands, said Andy Brown, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Anchorage.

It could reach the beachfront city of Nome with winds hitting 85mph.

The storm is expected to produce a 10ft sea surge, forcing dozens of coastal communities to make emergency preparations. Mr Brown advised Bering Sea mariners and people living in coastal communities from Wales to Unalakleet to "prepare for a really nasty storm".

The last time forecasters saw anything similar was in 1974, when Nome also took the brunt of the storm. That surge measured more than 13ft, pushing beach driftwood above the level of the previous storm of its type in 1913.

The storm, described by Mr Brown as "big, deep, low", is taking an unusual path through the northern and eastern Bering Sea. Winds from the storm are expected to push large amounts of water into Norton Sound, raising sea levels 10ft above normal.

Making communities more vulnerable than in past years is the lack of shore-fast sea ice, said Jeff Osinsky, the National Weather Service's regional warning co-ordinator. "The presence of sea ice can sometimes act to protect coastal areas," he said.

The bigger concern will be for Alaska Natives in the 18 villages in the region. The village of Point Hope, which sits on the tip of a peninsula with the Arctic Ocean on one side and the Bering Sea on the other, is 7ft to 8ft above sea level, Mayor Steve Oomittuk said.

The Inupiat Eskimo village of about 700 people has no sea wall and no evacuation road. If evacuation becomes necessary, everyone will go to the school because it sits on higher ground and is big enough to accommodate everyone, he said.

Smaller communities that are vulnerable to storm erosion are of particular concern, especially the village of Kivalina, already one of the state's most threatened communities because of erosion.

Saturn's Dragon Storm

These images show the progress of a huge storm, called the Dragon Storm, moving in Saturn’s upper atmosphere as the planet rotates.

Saturn is best known for its brilliant rings which are made up of countless ice and dust particles orbiting the planet in intricate patterns, some of which can be seen in this series of photographs.

Picture: © Paul Haese (Australia)

Hurricane Irene: Hurricanes explained

Hurricanes start when strong clusters of thunderstorms drift over warm ocean waters.
In the Atlantic and eastern Pacific they are called hurricanes, but in the western Pacific they are called typhoons.

In the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean they are known as cyclones.

The very warm air from the storm combines with the moist ocean surface and begin rising. This creates low pressure at the surface.

As trade winds hit those within the storm, the whirling winds cause the storm to start spinning. Rising warm air leaves low pressure above the surface.

Air rises faster and faster to fill this low pressure, in turn drawing more warm air off the sea and sucking cooler, drier air downwards.

As the storm moves over the ocean it picks up more warm, moist air. Wind speeds start to increase as more air is sucked into the low-pressure centre.

It can take hours or several days for a depression to grow into a fully-formed hurricane.

Hurricanes are made up of an eye of calm winds and low pressure surrounded by a spinning vortex of high winds and heavy rainstorms.

When a hurricane hits land it often has devastating effects.

The Saffir-Simpson scale was devised to measure hurricanes around the Americas and is increasingly used to categorise typhoons and cyclones, too, although some regions still use different scales.

The effects:
Category 1:

• Minor flooding
• Little structural damage
• Storm surge 1.2-1.5m above normal

Category 2:

• Roofs damaged
• Some trees damaged
• Storm surge 1.8-2.4m above normal

Category 3:

• Houses damaged
• Severe flooding
• Storm surge 2.7-3.7m above normal

Category 4:

• Some roofs destroyed
• Major structural damage to houses
• Storm surge 4-5.5m above normal

Category 5:

• Serious damage to buildings
• Severe flooding further inland
• Storm surge more than 5.5m above normal

NASA Cassini: Saturn storm

An image of Saturn taken by the Cassini camera shows a storm with a latitudinal and longitudinal extent of 10,000 km and 17,000 km, respectively.

The latitudinal extent of the storm’s head is approximately the distance from London to Cape Town.

Picture: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI / AFP