Meteorologists investigate Airborne jet streams bringing both floods and drought relief

A satellite image showing water-vapour concentration reveals an atmospheric river (yellow) streaming northeast across the Pacific Ocean.

Californians call it the Pineapple Express: a weather pattern that zips across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii, delivering not baskets of tropical fruit, but buckets of rain and snow.

In meteorological terms, the Pineapple Express is an atmospheric river, a narrow band of air that carries huge amounts of moisture.

For the next six weeks, meteorologists will be plying the eastern Pacific by air and sea, in the hope of catching several atmospheric rivers barrelling towards the coast.

It is the biggest push yet to understand these phenomena, which have received serious scientific attention only in the past decade.

Atmospheric rivers get their start over warm tropical waters; they then flow eastwards and towards the poles a kilometre or two above the ocean surface.

They may stretch for thousands of kilometres, but are only a few hundred kilometres wide. When they hit land, they start to drop their moisture in torrential downpours or blizzards.

“When we have too many atmospheric rivers, floods can occur, and when we don’t have enough we gradually fall into drought,” says Marty Ralph, a meteorologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and a leader of the field campaign.

In Europe, atmospheric rivers affect mostly the western part of the continent, but they can be felt as far inland as Poland.

In North America, the entire west coast is affected, and parts of the central and eastern United States occasionally feel the effects of atmospheric rivers that develop over the Gulf of Mexico.

The moisture is often welcome, bringing up to half of the year’s water supply in affected areas1.

A 2013 study found that as many as three-quarters of all droughts in the Pacific Northwest between 1950 and 2010 had been brought to an end by atmospheric-river storms2.

California has been stricken by drought for years (Nature 512, 121–122; 2014), but last month, an atmospheric river dropped enough rain to erase one-third of the water deficit of one major reservoir in just two days.

Climate change may bring stronger and more frequent atmospheric rivers, because the warmer the atmosphere is, the more water it can hold, says David Lavers, a meteorologist at Scripps who is not involved in the project.

“The more you know about how the atmosphere behaves,” he says, “the better position you’re in to prepare for extreme events.”

Read the full article on Nature website - Nature 517, 424–425 (22 January 2015) doi:10.1038/517424a

NASA Cassini: Europa's atmosphere is thinner than previously thought

Data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its 2001 flyby of Jupiter shows that Europa's tenuous atmosphere is thinner than had been thought.

Europa is considered one of the most exciting destinations in the Solar System for future exploration because it shows strong indications of having an ocean beneath its icy crust.

Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross Europa's surface, interrupted by regions of disrupted terrain where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns.

Colour variations across the surface are associated with differences in geologic feature type and location.

The polar regions are bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, which appear more white. This colour variation is thought to be due to differences in ice grain size in the two locations.

Europa has a crust made up of blocks, which are thought to have broken apart and 'rafted' into new positions, as shown in the image on the left. 

Image Credit: NASA /JPL /University of Arizona

Europa is surrounded by very tenuous hot, excited gas. Indications of possible plume activity were reported in 2013 by researchers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Data collected by Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph (UVIS) as Cassini sped through the Jupiter system en route to Saturn, shows that most of the plasma around Europa originates not from the moon itself, but from volcanoes on the nearby moon Io.

Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph (UVIS)

The researchers calculate that Europa contributes 40 times less oxygen than previously thought to its surrounding environment, making it less likely that the moon is regularly venting plumes of water vapour high into orbit.

"Our work shows that researchers have been overestimating the density of Europa's atmosphere by quite a bit," said Don Shemansky, a Cassini UVIS team member with Space Environment Technologies, who led the study.

The moon's tenuous atmosphere, which was already thought to be millions of times thinner than Earth's atmosphere, is actually about 100 times less dense than those previous estimates.

The data shows no evidence of plume activity occurring at the time of the flyby, so if there is plume activity, it is likely intermittent.

Ongoing plume activity at Europa, as Cassini has observed at Saturn's moon Enceladus, would inject large amounts of water vapour into the area around Europa's orbit if the plumes were large enough, but that is not what UVIS observed.

"It is certainly still possible that plume activity occurs, but that it is infrequent or the plumes are smaller than we see at Enceladus," said Amanda Hendrix, a Cassini UVIS team member with the Planetary Science Institute, who co-authored the new study.

Missions that visited Jupiter prior to Cassini provided strong indications that Io is the major contributor of material to the environment around Jupiter, and indicated a hot, low density plasma surrounding Europa. The new results confirm that. "Io is the real monster here," Shemansky said.

"Europa is a complex, amazing world, and understanding it is challenging given the limited observations we have," said Curt Niebur, Outer Planets program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

"Studies like this make the most of the data we have and help guide the kinds of science investigations NASA should pursue in the future."

The Hubble Space Telescope is currently conducting an extensive six-month long survey looking for plume activity, and NASA is studying various possible Europa missions for future exploration.

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover: Organics Possibly Present

This image illustrates possible ways methane might be added to Mars' atmosphere (sources) and removed from the atmosphere (sinks). 

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has detected fluctuations in methane concentration in the atmosphere, implying both types of activity occur on modern Mars. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAM-GSFC/Univ. of Michigan

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory's drill.

"This temporary increase in methane, sharply up and then back down, tells us there must be some relatively localized source," said Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Curiosity rover science team.

"There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock."

Researchers used Curiosity's onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory a dozen times in a 20-month period to sniff methane in the atmosphere.

During two of those months, in late 2013 and early 2014, four measurements averaged seven parts per billion.

Before and after that, readings averaged only one-tenth that level.

Curiosity also detected different Martian organic chemicals in powder drilled from a rock dubbed 'Cumberland', the first definitive detection of organics in surface materials of Mars.

These Martian organics could either have formed on Mars or been delivered to Mars by meteorites.

Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life, although they can exist without the presence of life.

Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not reveal whether Mars has ever harboured living microbes, but the findings do shed light on a chemically active modern Mars and on favorable conditions for life on ancient Mars.

"We will keep working on the puzzles these findings present," said John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (Caltech).

"Can we learn more about the active chemistry causing such fluctuations in the amount of methane in the atmosphere? Can we choose rock targets where identifiable organics have been preserved?"

Researchers worked many months to determine whether any of the organic material detected in the Cumberland sample was truly Martian.

Curiosity's SAM lab detected in several samples some organic carbon compounds that were, in fact, transported from Earth inside the rover.

However, extensive testing and analysis yielded confidence in the detection of Martian organics.

Climate Change Caused by the Ocean Circulation and Atmosphere

The Thermohaline Circulation or ocean conveyor belt moves heat and water between the hemispheres, along the ocean bottom. It also moves carbon dioxide.

Most of the concerns about climate change have focused on the amount of greenhouse gases that have been released into the atmosphere, but in a new study published in Science, a group of Rutgers researchers have found that circulation of the ocean plays an equally important role in regulating the earth's climate.

In their study, the researchers say the major cooling of Earth and continental ice build-up in the Northern Hemisphere 2.7 million years ago coincided with a shift in the circulation of the ocean - which pulls in heat and carbon dioxide in the Atlantic and moves them through the deep ocean from north to south until it's released in the Pacific.

The ocean conveyor system, Rutgers scientists believe, changed at the same time as a major expansion in the volume of the glaciers in the northern hemisphere as well as a substantial fall in sea levels.

It was the Antarctic ice, they argue, that cut off heat exchange at the ocean's surface and forced it into deep water. They believe this caused global climate change at that time, not carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"We argue that it was the establishment of the modern deep ocean circulation - the ocean conveyor - about 2.7 million years ago, and not a major change in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that triggered an expansion of the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere," says Stella Woodard, lead author and a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences.

Their findings, based on ocean sediment core samples between 2.5 million to 3.3 million years old, provide scientists with a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of climate change today.

The study shows that changes in heat distribution between the ocean basins is important for understanding future climate change.

However, scientists can't predict precisely what effect the carbon dioxide currently being pulled into the ocean from the atmosphere will have on climate.

Still, they argue that since more carbon dioxide has been released in the past 200 years than any recent period in geological history, interactions between carbon dioxide, temperature changes and precipitation, and ocean circulation will result in profound changes.

Scientists believe that the different pattern of deep ocean circulation was responsible for the elevated temperatures 3 million years ago when the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was arguably what it is now and the temperature was 4 degree Fahrenheit higher.

They say the formation of the ocean conveyor cooled the earth and created the climate we live in now.

"Our study suggests that changes in the storage of heat in the deep ocean could be as important to climate change as other hypotheses, tectonic activity or a drop in the carbon dioxide level, and likely led to one of the major climate transitions of the past 30 million years," says Yair Rosenthal, co-author and professor of marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers

NASA, ESA and ISRO Satellites and Rovers observe Mars atmosphere and Comet Siding Spring

This artist's concept illustration depicts the Comet Siding Spring (2013 A1) flyby Mars and illustrates some of the NASA, ESA and ISRO satellites positioned to record the event.

Credit: Nasa, ESA

A comet the size of a small mountain is about to skim past Mars, and NASA hopes its spacecraft will be able to photograph the once-in-a-million-years encounter.

This March 27, 2014 image provided by NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li shows comet C/2013 A1, also known as Siding Spring, as captured by Wide Field Camera 3 on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. 

Credit: AP Photo /NASA, ESA, J.-Y. Li

The comet, known as Siding Spring (C/2013 A1), is set to hurtle past Mars at a close distance of about 88,000 miles (141,600 kilometers).

The closest pass is expected to happen Sunday at 2:27 pm (1827 GMT).

Astronomers do not expect it will come any where near colliding with Mars, but they do hope it will be close enough to reveal clues about the origins of the solar system.

That is because the comet is believed to have originated billions of years ago in the Oort Cloud, a distant region of space at the outskirts of the solar system.

"Comets such as C/2013 A1 are essentially dirty icy snowballs with rocks and dust embedded in frozen gasses," said Dan Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University.

"It is on its first run towards the center of our solar system and its material is virtually unchanged by the rays of the sun and can give us an insight to the material composition of our early solar system 4.6 billion years ago."

Fast and powdery
The comet is flying through space at a breakneck speed of 122,400 miles per hour.

Another interesting thing about the comet, about a mile wide in diameter, is that it is only about as solid as a pile of talcum powder.

Illustration of the trajectory of Siding Spring, which will come close to Mars on Sunday.

NASA has manuevered its Mars orbiters to the far side of the planet so they won't be damaged by the comet's high-speed debris.

Even as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and MAVEN have been repositioned to avoid hazardous dust, scientists hope they will be able to capture a trove of data about the flyby for Earthlings to study.

NASA's two rovers, Curiosity and Opportunity, will turn their cameras skyward and send back pictures of the comet's pass in the coming days, weeks and months, the US space agency said.

"The orbiters will keep a close eye on the show," said Rebecca Johnson, editor of StarDate magazine.

"They'll study the comet itself, which is a small chunk of ice and rock. They'll also study the cloud of gas and dust around the comet, as well as its long tail," she said.

"And they'll measure how the gas and dust interact with the Martian atmosphere."

The comet has traveled more than one million years to make its first pass by Mars, and will not return for another million years, after it completes its next long loop around the sun.

The comet was discovered by Robert McNaught at ANU's Siding Spring Observatory in January 2013.

Its flyby of Mars is not likely to be visible to sky watchers on Earth.

But the encounter is of great interest to scientists, particularly since there are so many spacecraft on and around Mars to record it.

"As it zips toward the sun, it gives scientists a chance to see a relic from the distant past, a snowball that preserves the same ingredients that gave birth to our own world," said Johnson.

This image shows just how many satellites and probes humanity has sent to Mars. Some more successful than others, and we still have much to learn about our near neighbour.

India's Mangalyaan spacecraft shows active dust storms on Mars

This spectacular view of Mars from India's Mangalyaan spacecraft shows active dust storms in the Red Planet's northern hemisphere. 

This photo was released on Sept. 29, 2014, less than a week after the Indian Mars orbiter arrived at the planet. 

Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation

India's first spacecraft to visit Mars has beamed home its greatest photo of the Red Planet yet, a view that reveals the planet from pole to pole.

The new photo of Mars from India's Mangalyaan probe was unveiled today (Sept. 29) by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

It shows Mars as a red globe in space, with the planet's southern ice cap clearly visible, while a huge dust storm blankets part of the northern region.

"Something's brewing here!" ISRO officials wrote in a Twitter post for the Mars orbiter.

ISRO Mangalyaan spacecraft

The Mangalyaan spacecraft used its Mars Colour Camera to capture the amazing photo from a distance of 46,292 miles (74,500 kilometers) above the Red Planet on Sunday (Sept. 28), according to an ISRO photo description.

It is the third and best view of Mars from Mangalyaan since the spacecraft arrived in orbit around the planet last week.

The Mars Colour Camera is one of five different instruments riding aboard Mangalyaan to study Mars from orbit.

Mangalyaan (the name is Sanskrit for "Mars Craft") is the centerpiece of India's $74 million Mars Orbiter Mission, which launched toward the Red Planet in November 2013 and arrived in orbit on Sept. 24 of this year.

ESA Releases Bad and Good News from Earth's Atmosphere Studies

Carbon dioxide emissions increased in East Asia (right) at an average rate of 9.8% per year from 2003 to 2011, but nitrogen oxides increased by ‘only’ 5.8% per year.  

This indicates a use of cleaner technology in East Asia. 

North America and Europe, however, show slightly decreasing trends for both gases. 

The maps show the corresponding spatial pattern as obtained from the satellite data: red corresponds to regions with high values of NOx and CO2, while blue indicates background values.

Credit: ESA

While Europe and North America show a decrease in emission trends between 2003 and 2011, emissions related to economic growth in East Asia continue to rise, but with a reduction in nitrogen oxides emitted per amount of carbon dioxide.

This demonstrates the use of cleaner technology in East Asia.

Nitrogen oxides are generated during the high-temperature combustion of fossil fuels in automobiles and industrial machinery.

They contribute significantly to a reduction of air quality and can be the cause of respiratory problems.

At the same time, these sources release large amounts of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is toxic only at very high concentrations, but is the most important man-made greenhouse gas, leading to global warming and its related consequences.

In a study published yesterday in Nature Geoscience, scientists from the University of Bremen in Germany used data from the Sciamachy instrument on ESA’s Envisat satellite to measure nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide trends from 2003 to 2011.

They also exploited  Sciamachy-based data products generated within the ‘GHG-CCI’ project under ESA’s Climate Change Initiative.

“Nitrogen dioxide has a relatively short lifetime, hours, compared to carbon dioxide, which lasts decades, and is a suitable tracer of recently emitted carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion,” explained Maximilian Reuter, lead author of the study.

“Sciamachy measured nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide simultaneously. We used a spatial high-pass filtering method to isolate the anthropogenic carbon dioxide signal from overlaying signals due to uptake and release of carbon dioxide by vegetation.”

Satellite-derived CO2 concentrations proportional to local anthropogenic emissions in North America and Europe. 

The green line shows the mean value and the grey-shaded area its variability and uncertainty. 

This indicates that less CO2 is emitted during weekends compared to week days.

Using this method, the scientists were able to better see where and when carbon dioxide was emitted.

For example, it showed that less carbon dioxide from local anthropogenic sources is emitted during weekends in Europe and North America compared to week days.

“This has never been observed from space before and shows how accurate the used method is,” said Dr Reuter.

Although Envisat’s mission ended in 2012, a decade of data from its 10 instruments is still being exploited for studies on Earth’s atmosphere, land, oceans and ice caps.

“Unfortunately, none of the existing nor any of the planned near-future satellites are designed to directly observe carbon dioxide emissions of cities, power plants, volcanoes or other important emission hot spots,” said Michael Buchwitz, co-author of the study and GHG-CCI scientific leader.

“This will only be possible with the proposed mission CarbonSat.”

CarbonSat is one of the two candidates for ESA’s eighth Earth Explorer satellite.

Using the unique spectroscopic fingerprint of carbon dioxide and methane, CarbonSat aims to image these two strong greenhouse gases at very high resolution.

The mission would lead to a better understanding of the sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane.

NASA's Maven explorer arrives at Mars after one year transit

In this artist concept provided by NASA, the MAVEN spacecraft approaches Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere. 

It arrived on Sunday Sept. 21, 2014.

MAVEN's 442 million mile journey from Earth culminated in a dramatic engine burn, pulling the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit. 

The Maven mission is designed to simply orbit the planet, not land. Credit: AP Photo/NASA

NASA's Maven spacecraft arrived at Mars late Sunday after a 442 million-mile (711 million kilometer) journey that began nearly a year ago.

The robotic explorer fired its brakes and successfully slipped into orbit around the red planet, officials confirmed.

"This is such an incredible night," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief for science missions.

Members of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) team celebrate at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, Sunday night, after getting confirmation that the spacecraft entered Mars' orbit.

Now the real work begins for the $671 million mission, the first dedicated to studying Mars' upper atmosphere.

Flight controllers in Colorado will spend the next six weeks adjusting Maven's altitude and checking its science instruments.

Then Maven will start probing the upper atmosphere of Mars. The spacecraft will conduct its observations from orbit; it's not meant to land.

Scientists believe the Martian atmosphere holds clues as to how Earth's neighbor went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry.

That early wet world may have harbored microbial life, a tantalizing question yet to be answered.

NASA launched Maven last November from Cape Canaveral, the 10th U.S. mission sent to orbit the red planet.

Three earlier ones failed, and until the official word came of success late Sunday night, the entire team was on edge.

"I don't have any fingernails any more, but we've made it," said Colleen Hartman, deputy director for science at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It's incredible."

The spacecraft was clocking more than 10,000 mph (16,000 kph) when it hit the brakes for the so-called orbital insertion, a half-hour process.

The world had to wait 12 minutes to learn the outcome, once it occurred, because of the lag in spacecraft signals given the 138 million miles (222 million kilometers) between the two planets on Sunday.

New Horizons: Awaiting New Results on Pluto's Atmosphere

Artist's impression of Pluto, with its wispy atmosphere.

Data from New Horizons' Alice ultraviolet spectrograph will answer a full range of questions about the composition and structure of that atmosphere.

What is Pluto's atmosphere like? It seems like I've been wondering about that for decades!

We've known so little for so long about Pluto's atmosphere, other than it's low-pressure, made mostly of molecular nitrogen (with a little methane and carbon monoxide mixed in) and may be quite extended, it's nice to realise that we'll know a whole lot more after New Horizons visits in summer 2015.

Alice UV spectrograph

My professional interests on New Horizons lie with Pluto's upper atmosphere, what it's made of, how it interacts with space, and how it is processed by sunlight into different gases and aerosols.

A problem in planning atmospheric observations for New Horizons during the flyby is that we really don't know what to expect.

Only a few models have been made that try to predict the composition of Pluto's atmosphere, and they don't agree very much with each other because of the many present uncertainties.

So our plans generally include a lot of survey-type observations, where we try not to assume too much about what we will detect, but are ready for anything.

The best example of this is the Pluto solar occultation observation.

Just Joking!

The Alice ultraviolet spectrograph will watch the Sun set (and then rise again) as New Horizons flies through Pluto's shadow, about an hour after closest approach.

Watching how the different colours of sunlight fade (and then return) as New Horizons enters (and leaves) the shadow will tell us nearly all we could ask for about composition (all gases have unique absorption signatures at the ultraviolet wavelengths covered by Alice) and structure (how those the absorption features vary with altitude will tell us about temperatures, escape rates and possibly about dynamics and clouds).

When the New Horizons data start coming down, these are the data I'll be waiting for the most!

NASA OCO-2 Satellite Takes First Look at Earth's Carbon Dioxide

Artist's rendition of NASA's OCO-2 satellite in orbit. 

OCO-2 was launched on July 2, 2014 and made its first science measurements a month later, on Aug. 6. 

Credit: JPL/NASA

NASA's newest satellite has arrived in its final orbit and begun tracking levels of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2), which blasted off July 2, arrived in its final orbit 438 miles (705 kilometers) above the Earth on Aug. 3.

The satellite then collected its first test data three days later while flying over Papua New Guinea, agency officials said.

"The initial data from OCO-2 appear exactly as expected, the spectral lines are well resolved, sharp and deep," OCO-2's chief architect and calibration lead, Randy Pollock, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement Monday (Aug. 11).

"We still have a lot of work to do to go from having a working instrument to having a well-calibrated and scientifically useful instrument, but this was an important milestone on this journey."



OCO-2 is the first operational NASA satellite dedicated to measuring atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, which scientists say is largely responsible for Earth's recent warming trend.

Concentrations of the gas in Earth's air have risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) before the Industrial Revolution to about 400 ppm today, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities.

OCO-2 will use its single scientific instrument, a grading spectrometer, to gather precise CO2 data thousands of times each day, helping researchers get a much clearer picture of how the gas is cycling through the atmosphere, what sources are pumping it out, and which "sinks" are sucking it up, NASA officials said.

OCO-2 will become the leader of the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, as shown in this artist's concept. 

Japan’s Global Change Observation Mission - Water (GCOM-W1) satellite and NASA’s Aqua, CALIPSO, CloudSat and Aura satellites follow. 

Image Credit: NASA

By reaching its ultimate, near-polar orbit, OCO-2 joined five other Earth-observation satellites in a constellation known as the "A-Train." (The name is short for "Afternoon Train"; all of the spacecraft cross the equator going north in the early afternoon local time.)

The OCO-2 mission team will calibrate the spacecraft's spectrometer over the next few weeks.

The satellite will also beam to Earth up to 1 million scientific measurements every day, to help test out data-processing systems on the ground, NASA officials said.

The $465 million mission should start delivering calibrated science data before the end of 2014, they added.

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).

Earth's Upper-tropospheric water vapour is a global warming amplifier

This is a colour enhanced satellite image of upper tropospheric water vapour. 

Credit: NASA

A new study from scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and colleagues confirms rising levels of water vapour in the upper troposphere, a key amplifier of global warming, will intensify climate change impacts over the next decades.

The new study is the first to show that increased water vapour concentrations in the atmosphere are a direct result of human activities.

"The study is the first to confirm that human activities have increased water vapor in the upper troposphere," said Brian Soden, professor of atmospheric sciences at the UM Rosenstiel School and co-author of the study.

To investigate the potential causes of a 30-year moistening trend in the upper troposphere, a region 3-7 miles above Earth's surface, Soden, UM Rosenstiel School researcher Eui-Seok Chung and colleagues measured water vapour in the upper troposphere collected by NOAA satellites and compared them to climate model predictions of water circulation between the ocean and atmosphere to determine whether observed changes in atmospheric water vapour could be explained by natural or man-made causes.

Using the set of climate model experiments, the researchers showed that rising water vapour in the upper troposphere cannot be explained by natural forces, such as volcanoes and changes in solar activity, but can be explained by increased greenhouse gases, such as CO2.

Greenhouse gases raise temperatures by trapping the Earth's radiant heat inside the atmosphere.

This warming also increases the accumulation of atmospheric water vapour, the most abundant greenhouse gas.

The atmospheric moistening traps additional radiant heat and further increases temperatures.

This is an illustration of annual mean T2-T12 field that provides a direct measure of the upper-tropospheric water vapour. 

Purple = dry and Red = moist. 

Credit: Eui-Seok Chung, Ph.D., UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science

Climate models predict that as the climate warms from the burning of fossil fuels, the concentrations of water vapour will also increase in response to that warming.

This moistening of the atmosphere, in turn, absorbs more heat and further raises the Earth's temperature.

More information: PNAS. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1409659111

Venus: Colonising The Acidic Atmosphere

Life dangling above planet Venus may feel rather odd for some, while others may have no idea what to expect. 

Commentator George Turner on Selenian Boondocks described how a colonist on Venus could hold meat into the planet's harsh acidic atmosphere as a way of cooking.

US scientists and science-fiction writers alike have made a strong case for the possible colonization of Venus.

While so many space enthusiasts are keeping their eyes on Mars, there might be a planet with more prosperous opportunities for the human race.

There is a strong case for creating a floating colony above Venus, according to writer Charles Stross.

The sci-fi author suggested that a constructed floating city on Venus could be made, but would need the help of billionaires' bank accounts.

Venus, the second planet away from the Sun may not seem like the coziest place to live as the surface temperature is so hot, it could melt lead.

However, the air on Venus thins out as it rises above the ground and cools off, around an estimated 30 miles up, human habitation could be a very possible plan.

It is believed that it would be like the temperature of the Mediterranean with the barometric pressure being at sea-level.

The most plausible place to establish a floating city would most likely be the planet Venus, as stated in an article on citylab.com.

Though the concept sounds far-out, a floating city may just be a do-able project. Scientist and sci-fi writer Geoffrey Landis introduced a concept in a paper he called "Colonizing Venus" during the Conference of Human Space Exploration, Space Technology and Applications International Forum that was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2003.

Air, that is considered to be breathable, exists in Venus' atmosphere filled with carbon dioxide. This means that on the planet Venus, a blimp would be able to use air to lift it up, the way other blimps take advantage of helium to float in an atmosphere that is much thinner.

Landis is not alone in his way of furturistic thinking. An entire group of sci-fi authors and scientists have been talking about the concept on the blog entitled Selenian Boondocks, in which its founder Jonathan Goff describes it as "a blog I founded to discuss space politics, policy, technology, business, and space settlement."

Still, a huge problem with a lunar colony is the fact that astronauts' bones and muscles start to break down in a low gravity environment.

For the time being, nobody is sure how much gravity a human really needs to prevent this deterioration from happening.

However it is important to point out that Venus' gravity is the closest to Earth, if compared to other planets, at about 9/10ths.

If Mars is looked into, it only has a third of the gravity that planet Earth has, and the moon just has a sixth.

Another crucial factor that needs to be looked into is atmospheric pressure. Mars is not at all suitable as it would suck oxygen out of a human's surroundings on its planet at a rapid speed.

However, 30 miles above Venus, the oxygen would just seep out. This also means that a colony above Venus would not need to have such strong support.

Read the full article here

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 will measure CO2 in the atmosphere

An artists rendition of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2), which will launch on July 1 and measure atmospheric carbon dioxide 

NASA is preparing a July 1 launch for its first satellite dedicated to measuring atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that plays a key role in climate change.

CO2 levels have reached their highest point in at least 800,000 years, according to the US space agency.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) satellite is very similar to its predecessor, OCO-1, which was destroyed during its launch in February 2009.

The satellite will help provide a more complete and global picture of man-made and naturally occurring CO2 emissions as well as the effects of carbon "sinks," like oceans and forests, which absorb and trap the gas.

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere plays a critical role in our planet's energy balance and is a key factor in understanding how our climate is changing," said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division.

"With the OCO-2 mission, NASA will be contributing an important new source of global observations to the scientific challenge of better understanding our Earth and its future," he added in a statement.

The OCO-2 satellite will be launched on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, aiming for an orbit at 438 miles (705 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.

ESA Venus Express VITRIS: Ready to aerobrake through planet's atmosphere

This global view of the southern hemisphere of Venus is a mosaic of images obtained by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on board ESA’s Venus Express on 16 May 2006. 

The night-side hemisphere (in red at the top) is made of infrared images taken at 1.74 micrometres, showing the lower layers of the cloud deck surrounding the planet at about 45-km altitude. 

The day-side hemisphere (in blue at the bottom) is made of ultraviolet images taken at 480 nanometres. 

It shows the cloud top layer at about 65-km altitude. 

The red part of the central panel was taken at 3.8 micrometres, and shows the double vortex at the south pole, at an altitude of about 60 km, surrounded by a collar of ‘cold’ air. 

Credit: ESA /VIRTIS-VenusX IASF-INAF, Observatoire de Paris (R.Hueso, Univ. Bilbao)

Keck Observatory's NIRSPEC: Water vapour detected in the atmosphere of a hot Jupiter

Simulated data showing the method used for detecting water vapor features detected around the hot Jupiter tau Boo b. 

In this example, the planetary signal has been increased in strength relative by several orders of magnitude relative to the actual signal. 

The dotted lines show the blue- and red-shifts of the planetary and stellar lines in the data, respectively, due to the orbital motion of two bodies in the system. 

Credit: Alexandra Lockwood (CalTech), Background Image David Aguilar (CFA).

California Institute of Technology (Caltech) astronomers using data gathered at the W. M. Keck Observatory have developed a new technique for planetary scientists that could provide insight into how many water planets like Earth exist within our universe.

The results have been published on February 24th by Astrophysical Letters.

Alexandra Lockwood

Scientists have detected water vapour on other planets in the past, but these detections could only take place under very specific circumstances, according to graduate student Alexandra Lockwood, the first author of the study.

"When a planet transits, or passes in orbit, in front of its host star, we can use information from this event to detect water vapour and other atmospheric compounds."

"Alternatively, if the planet is sufficiently far away from its host star, we can also learn about a planet's atmosphere by imaging it."

However, a significant portion of the population of extrasolar planets does not fit either of these criteria and there wasn't really a way to find information about the atmospheres of these planets.

Geoffrey Blake

Looking to resolve this problem, Lockwood and her advisor Geoffrey Blake, Caltech professor of cosmochemistry, planetary sciences and chemistry, were inspired by the recent detection of carbon monoxide in the extrasolar planet, 'Tau Boo b' and they wondered if they could detect water in a similar manner.

The method used to detect carbon monoxide utilized the radial velocity (RV) technique, a technique commonly used in the visible region of the spectrum, to which our eyes are sensitive, for discovering non-transiting exoplanets.

Using the Doppler effect, RV detection traditionally determines the motion of a star due to the gravitational pull of a companion planet; the star moves opposite that of the orbital motion of the planet, and stellar features shift in wavelength. A large planet or a planet closer to its host star provides a larger shift.

An artistic impression of extrasolar planet, 'Tau Boo b' 

The team used the carbon monoxide study as a guide to expand the RV technique into the infrared to determine the orbit of extrasolar planet, 'Tau Boo b' around its star, and added further analysis of the light shifts via spectroscopy, an analysis of the light's spectrum.

Since every molecule emits a different wavelength of light, this unique light signature allows the researchers to analyze molecules that comprise the planet's atmosphere.

Using data of extrasolar planet, 'Tau Boo b' collected with the Near Infrared Echelle Spectrograph (NIRSPEC) instrument at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, the researchers were able to compare the molecular signature of water to the light spectrum emitted by the planet, confirming that the atmosphere did indeed include water vapour.

"The readout we get from Keck Observatory's NIRSPEC is like listening to an orchestra performance; you hear all of the music together, but if you listen carefully, you can pick out a trumpet or a violin or a cello, and you know that those instruments are present," Lockwood said.

"The instrument allows you to pick out different pieces; like this wavelength of light means that there is sodium, or this one means that there's water."

More information: "Near-IR Direct Detection of Water Vapour in Tau Boo b." Alexandra C. Lockwood, John A. Johnson, Chad F. Bender, John S. Carr, Travis Barman, Alexander J.W. Richert, Geoffrey A. Blake. arXiv:1402.0846 [astro-ph.EP].