Topic: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NASA reports on the effects of Strong Solar Flares

May 14, 2013 |

Written by Karen C. Fox
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather — great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun — some people worry that a gigantic “killer solar flare” could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth, but this is not actually possible.

Solar activity is indeed currently ramping up toward what is known as solar maximum, something that occurs approximately every 11 years. However, this same solar cycle has occurred over millennia so anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft captured this image of a solar flare as it erupted from the sun early on Nov 4, 2003. This was the most powerful flare measured with modern methods, classified as an X28.
(Credit: ESA and NASA/SOHO)

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NOAA predicts mixed bag of drought, flooding and warm weather for spring

March 22, 2013 |

Washington, D.C. – NOAA issued the three-month U.S. Spring Outlook today, stating that odds favor above-average temperatures across much of the continental United States, including drought-stricken areas of Texas, the Southwest and the Great Plains.

Spring promises little drought relief for most of these areas, as well as Florida, with below- average spring precipitation favored there. Meanwhile, river flooding is likely to be worse than last year across the country, with the most significant flood potential in North Dakota.

U.S. Spring Flood Risk Map for 2013. Read the full National Hydrologic Assessment. (Credit: NOAA)

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United Nations forum places Space Weather on the Agenda

February 14, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – Rewind to the late 1950s. The Soviet Union had just launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. The United States, caught short, was scrambling to catch up, kick-starting a Cold War space race that would last for decades.  Space was up for grabs, and it seemed like anything could happen.

Into this void stepped the United Nations. In 1958, the General Assembly “recognizing the common interest of mankind in furthering the peaceful use of outer space … and desiring to avoid the extension of present national rivalries into this new field….” established the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). (Credit: UN Information Service)

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NASA to send ISS-RapidScat instrument to International Space Station to measure Ocean Winds

February 3, 2013 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – In a clever reuse of hardware originally built to test parts of NASA’s QuikScat satellite, the agency will launch the ISS-RapidScat instrument to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction.

The ISS-RapidScat instrument will help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring, and understanding of how ocean-atmosphere interactions influence Earth’s climate.

Artist’s rendering of NASA’s ISS-RapidScat instrument (inset), which will launch to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction and help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring. It will be installed on the end of the station’s Columbus laboratory. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JSC)

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NASA scientists report on long term Global Warming Trend

January 16, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record.

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis Tuesday that compares temperatures around the globe in 2012 to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago.

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NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting satellite captures intriguing images of the Earth at Night

December 7, 2012 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – At the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, scientists unveiled an unprecedented new look at our planet at night.

A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across Earth in greater detail than ever before.

This image of the continental United States at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. The image was made possible by the satellite’s “day-night band” of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires and reflected moonlight. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC)

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NASA’s Aqua spacecraft provides scientists with relative humidity data that could help forecast Hurricane Strengths

December 3, 2012 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Forecasters could soon be better able to predict how intense tropical cyclones like Hurricane Sandy will be by analyzing relative-humidity levels within their large-scale environments, finds a new NASA-led study.

Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, UCLA and the University of Hawaii at Manoa analyzed relative humidity data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft for nearly 200 North Atlantic hurricanes between 2002 and 2010.

Hurricane Sandy as seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft on Oct. 28th, 2012, when the Category 1 storm was centered off the southeastern U.S. coast. A new NASA-led study finds that analysis of relative humidity levels in the large-scale environment of tropical cyclones may be useful in improving forecasts of their intensity. (Image credit: NASA GSFC/LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team)

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NOAA’s GOES-13 Weather Satellite Imager and Sounder goes out of service, GOES-14 acting as Back-Up

September 30, 2012 |

Written by Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-13 weather satellite has been temporarily substituted with the back-up GOES satellite as engineers work to fix the satellite’s issues.

NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-13 sits in a fixed orbit over the eastern U.S. and provides continuous coverage of weather systems over the continental U.S. and the Atlantic Ocean basin.

According to NOAA, the GOES-13 Imager went out of service since September 23rd, 2012 at 2122 UTC (5:22pm EDT), and the GOES-13 Sounder went out of service on September 23rd, 2012 at 1126 UTC (7:26am EDT).

Artist’s conception of the GOES-13 satellite. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite known as GOES-13 became the official GOES-EAST satellite on April 14th, 2010. GOES-13 was moved from on-orbit storage and into active duty. (Credit: NASA)

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USDA Agricultural Weather and Drought Update for August 16th, 2012

August 16, 2012 |

Washington, DC – The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, dated August 14th, indicates that some drought-affected areas of the United States have begun to turn the corner with respect to the historic drought of 2012.

During the seven-day period ending August 14th, conterminous U.S. drought coverage fell to 61.8%, down from a July 24th peak of 63.9%. Continental U.S. coverage of extreme to exceptional drought (D3 to D4), the two worst drought categories, dipped to 23.7%, less than one-half of a percentage point below last week’s peak.

U.S. cattle areas located in drought. Click to enlarge.

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NASA’s Unmanned Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinels ready to study this Summer’s Storms

June 4, 2012 |

Written by Rob Gutro and Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Ah, June. It marks the end of school, the start of summer…and the official start of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, which got off to an early start in May with the formation of Tropical Storms Alberto and Beryl. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters are calling for a near-normal hurricane season this year.

But whether the season turns out to be wild or wimpy, understanding what makes these ferocious storms form and rapidly intensify is a continuing area of scientific research, and is the focus of the NASA-led Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission that kicks off this summer.

NASA's Global Hawk soars aloft from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The NASA Global Hawk is well-suited for hurricane investigations because it can over-fly hurricanes at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet with flight durations of up to 28 hours - something piloted aircraft would find nearly impossible to do. (Credit: NASA/Tony Landis)

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