We weren't the only ones enjoying a gorgeous day today. Researchers with the Mars Institute's Houghton-Mars Project up on Devon Island, in the Canadian Arctic, were arriving for a summer of fun science under conditions chosen because they mimic those astronauts will find on Mars.  Except that the high temperature there today was an unexpectedly mild 64 degrees.

Here are the temperatures that NASA's Mars rover Spirit has encountered. Here is the weather report for nearby Resolute.

And here is a link to the Web site for the expedition. You can watch Web cams (the pictures look like those sent back by NASA's Mars rovers, except that the sky is blue, not pink), and follow the researchers' blog. They're even operating a greenhouse up there. Mars explorers will do better if they can raise some of their own food on the long adventure, and a little greenhouse warming would be a good thing on Mars.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Most of the time, we ignore the temperatures recorded in downtown Baltimore. The National Weather Services decided back in 1950 that the thermometer readings they were getting from the instruments on the roof of the Customs House were unreliable, and not representative of the surrounding region. Rooftops are notoriously hot, and the brick and stone buildings, concrete sidewalks, asphalt roofs and streets, smokestacks and air conditioning exhaust all make cities hotter than their surrounding suburbs and countryside, especially at night.

So, in 1950, the weather service moved Baltimore's station of record out of the city, and established Friendship Airport - now BWI Marshall - as the spot where official "Baltimore" weather data has ever since been gathered.

In April 1998, the weather service decided that the roof of the Customs House was not even a good place to record urban temperatures. So, they built a new station beside the Maryland Science Center, and discontinued data collecting at the Customs House after nearly a century of continuous record-keeping.

Unfortunately, it wasn't an ideal choice. The spot is often sheltered from the wind by the Science Center itself. And, because the site isn't a priority station for the weather service, breakdowns aren't fixed quickly, and large data gaps crop up. The station does not report wind, visibility, and sky condition. Only temperature, dew point, precipitation and barometric pressure are reported. Temperatures there are usually warmer than at BWI, reflecting a continuing heat island effect. We've seen it again this week, with Inner Harbor highs breaking 100 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday, while BWI highs lagged by a degree or two. But I digress.

Climate scientists have done quite a bit of research on the impact of urban development on the micro-climate of a big city. For example, they've established that cities affect the weather. The extra heat rising from a city creates updrafts and convection that lift warm, moist air high into the atmosphere. There, it cools, the moisture condenses out as rain, and regions downwind of the city actually get increased rainfall.

This heat island effect also increases the misery and cooling costs of city residents, and that has prompted research into how the effect might be dampened by planting roof gardens, resurfacing rooftops in white instead of black, and simply planting more trees in our cities.

All of this brings me to a point where I can provide a link to an interesting discussion of some recent NASA-funded research into the issue. Here's the link. Be sure to follow the blue links at the bottom of each page. There's lots to read here.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have re-analyzed the terrible weather that doomed the Great Lakes ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10-11, 1975. The ship's sinking was memorialized in Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 ballad "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Combining all the data available from the period of the ship's sinking with modern computer modeling, the researchers have produced the most detailed and reliable estimates to date of the conditions that beset the ship and its crew of 29 that night on Lake Superior. The results, published this month in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, are terrifying.

The 729-foot ship, which was churning south toward the shelter of Whitefish Bay, appears to have encountered winds up to 69 mph, and gusts to hurricane force. Worse, the wind probably produced 25-foot waves - rare for the lake - running west to east, directly broadside to the ship. The conditions persisted for up to six hours. Earlier than that, or later, and the ship likely would have survived the night, the researchers suggest.

For the full report, click here, then click on "Print Version."

Posted by Frank Roylance at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Two recent reports from NASA-funded scientists agree that, based on satellite data, the water ice locked up in Antarctica is shrinking as the global climate warms, contributing to the rise of sea levels around the world.

But one of the studies found that while glaciers at the edges of Greenland are also melting, the snow pack at the center is growing as snowfall increases - both effects predicted by global warming theory. On balance, then, the water locked up in Greenland's ice and snow gained slightly during the study period, but the net change for both ends of the planet combined, shows a net loss.

The scientists say glacial melt accounts for only a tiny fraction of the rise in sea levels. Most is due to the expansion of the oceans as the waters warm. And even that doesn't explain it all. Where the rest of the added water is coming from remains a scientific mystery.

Here is a news release on the first study, published last week. And here is the release on the second, just out.  Gentle readers, inflate your water wings.

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Scientists and engineers at Purdue University are developing an unmanned, helium-filled aircraft that would hover for a year above 65,000 feet to do survellance work and weather forecasting. The huge craft - four times the length of the Goodyear blimp - would run on solar power and fuel cells. (Purdue's prototype is just 19 feet long.)

Higher than airplanes, lower than satellites and more durable than weather balloons, such devices might provide meteorologists with data they can't get today. But can they hold their positions amid the harsh conditions and winds at such high altitudes? Here's the story.

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Scientists at the University of California have found a link between high tides and earthquakes along certain types of faults. It looks like the added stress of high water can push an already-stressed fault over the edge. Read about it here.

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Folks in much of the American West are suffering through their 5th year of drought. It may get worse. Scientists led by Columbia University's Earth Institute say the Western states may be particularly prone to drought during periods of warming climate.

Using tree ring data and other indicators of ancient climate change, the researchers studied cycles of aridity in the western U.S. over the past 1,200 years. They found a 400-year period of dry weather and extended drought in the West from AD 900 to 1300. That corresponded with the "Medieval Warm Period" which saw unusual warmth in much of the Northern Hemisphere. Their conclusion, to be published in the journal Science: "Any trend towards warmer temperatures in the future could lead to a serious long-term increase in aridity over Western North America."

Co-author David Meko, of the University of Arizona, said the lengthening drought in the West today "pales in comparison with some of the earlier droughts we see from the tree-ring record. What would really put a stress on society is decade-long drought." And that possibility becomes a potential reality in a world increasingly affected by greenhouse warming, the study said.

Maybe this is why Ted Turner has become Nebraska's largest landowner. Those vast tracts provide grazing for Turner's buffalo. But they also stand atop one of the world's richest deposits of groundwater - the Ogallala aquifer. Smart.

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