1. What Is Energy?

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 1

2001 November. Birth of a Large Iceberg in Pine Island Bay, Antarctica [223kb PDF NASA Lithograph] This lithograph shows the break-off of a large tabular iceberg from the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica. This event occurred between November 4th and 12th, 2001, and provides powerful evidence of rapid changes underway in this area of Antarctica. The three images were acquired by the vertical-viewing (nadir) camera of the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft. The dimensions of the iceberg are approximately 42 kilometers by 17 kilometers (26 miles by 11 miles).

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 1

2. Why Do Volcanoes Erupt?

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 2

2008 January 17. NASA Tsunami Research Makes Waves in Science Community. Excerpt: PASADENA, Calif. - A wave of new NASA research on tsunamis has yielded an innovative method to improve existing tsunami warning systems, and a potentially roundbreaking new theory on the source of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In one study, published last fall in Geophysical Research Letters, researcher Y. Tony Song of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., demonstrated that real-time data from NASA's network of global positioning system (GPS) stations can detect ground motions preceding tsunamis and reliably estimate a tsunami's destructive potential within minutes, well before it reaches coastal areas. The method could lead to development of more reliable global tsunami warning systems, saving lives and reducing false alarms. ..."Tsunamis can travel as fast as jet planes, so rapid assessment following quakes is vital to mitigate their hazard," said Ichiro Fukumori, a JPL oceanographer not involved in the study. "Song and his colleagues have demonstrated that GPS technology can help improve both the speed and accuracy of such analyses."
...Scientists have long believed tsunamis form from vertical deformation of seafloor during undersea earthquakes. However, seismograph and GPS data show such deformation from the 2004 Sumatra earthquake was too small to generate the powerful tsunami that ensued. Song's team found horizontal forces were responsible for two-thirds of the tsunami's height, as observed by three
satellites....

2007 November 1. Is the ocean carbon sink sinking? RealClimate website. --David. Excerpt: The past few weeks and years have seen a bushel of papers finding that the natural world, in particular perhaps the ocean, is getting fed up with absorbing our CO2... evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle positive feedback has begun.
...If changing climate were to cause the natural world to slow down its carbon uptake, or even begin to release carbon, that would exacerbate the climate forcing from fossil fuels: a positive feedback.
The ocean has a tendency to take up more carbon as the CO2 concentration in the air rises, because of Henry's Law, which states that in equilibrium, more in the air means more dissolved in the water. Stratification of the waters in the ocean, due to warming at the surface for example, tends to oppose CO2 invasion, by slowing the rate of replenishing surface waters by deep waters which haven't taken up fossil fuel CO2 yet.
... Le Quere et al. [2007] ... find that the Southern Ocean has begun to release carbon since about 1990....
A decrease in ocean uptake is more clearly documented in the North Atlantic by Schuster and Watson [2007]. They show surface ocean CO2 measurements ... rose by about 15 microatmospheres
...The warming at the end of the last ice age was prompted by changes in Earth's orbit around the sun, but it was greatly amplified by the rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. The orbits pushed on ice sheets, which pushed on climate. The climate changes triggered a strong positive carbon cycle feedback which is, yes, still poorly understood.
Now industrial activity is pushing on atmospheric CO2 directly. The question is when and how strongly the carbon cycle will push back.

2007 April 4. Quake lifts Solomons island out of the sea. By Neil Sands. Excerpt: RANONGGA, Solomon Islands (AFP) - The seismic jolt that unleashed the deadly Solomons tsunami this week lifted an entire island metres out of the sea, destroying some of the world's most pristine coral reefs. In an instant, the grinding of the Earth's tectonic plates in the
8.0magnitude earthquake Monday forced the island of Ranongga up three metres (10 foot). Submerged reefs that once attracted scuba divers from around the globe lie exposed and dying after the quake raised the mountainous landmass, which is 32-kilometres (20-miles) long and 8-kilometres (5-miles) wide. ...The stench of rotting fish and other marine life stranded on the reefs when the seas receded is overwhelming and the once vibrant coral is dry and crunches underfoot. Dazed villagers stand on the shoreline, still coming to terms with the cataclysmic shift that changed the geography of their island forever, pushing the shoreline out to sea by up to 70 metres. ...fisherman Hendrik Kegala had just finished exploring the new underwater landscape of the island with a snorkel when contacted by the AFP team. He said a huge submerged chasm had opened up, running at least 500 metres (550 yards) parallel to the coast. On the beach at Niu Barae, the earthquake has revealed a sunken vessel that locals believe is a Japanese patrol boat, a remnant of the fierce fighting between Allied forces and the Japanese in WWII. ...Jackie Thomas, acting manager for Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the Solomons, said the loss of the reefs was a huge blow for the fishing communities that are dotted along Ranongga's coast. "The fish from the reefs are the major source of protein for the villagers," she told AFP from Gizo."....

2007 January 9. Long-Term Global Forecast? Fewer Continents. By WILLIAM J. BROAD, The New York Times. Excerpt: Kiss the Mediterranean goodbye. Ditto the Red Sea and its wonderland of coral reefs and exotic sea life. And prepare for the day when San Francisco has a gritty new suburb: Los Angeles....Geologists have long prided themselves on their ability to peer into the distant past and discern the slow movements of land and sea that have continuously revised the planet's face over eons. Now, drawing on new insights, theories, measurements and technologies - and perhaps a bit of scientific bravado - they are forecasting the shape of terra firma in the distant future. ...how the planet's surface might look 50 million years from now, ...Africa has drifted to the north, plowing into Europe and fusing the two landmasses, eliminating the Mediterranean Sea and replacing it with the Mediterranean Mountains. The rugged range runs down the middle of a continent far bigger than current-day Eurasia, a giant new agglomeration that might be called Afrasia. ...Forecasts of future continental motion developed slowly as offshoots of the theory of plate tectonics, which won acceptance in the 1960s and 1970s, shattering old dogmas of continental immobility. The theory of plate tectonics holds that the surface of Earth is composed of a dozen or so huge crustal slabs that float on a sea of partially molten rock. Over ages, hot convection currents in this sea, as well as gravitational forces, move the plates and their superimposed continents and ocean basins, tearing them apart and rearranging them like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. The theory, named for the Greek word "tekton," or builder, is a study in slowness. Colliding plates grind past one another about as fast as fingernails grow. ...In 1970, Robert S. Dietz, who uncovered major clues to plate movement in the deep sea, wrote a Scientific American article on the breakup of Pangea. ...Ten million years from now, Dr. Dietz wrote, "Los Angeles will be abreast of San Francisco." And in another 50 million years, he added, Los Angeles will have moved up the west coast into Alaskan waters. ... Dr. Christopher R. Scotese, a geologist at the University of Texas, Arlington drew a series of futuristic maps ... http://www.scotese.com ...showcases his work, called the Paleomap Project. ....

2006 December 27. Head-banging snakes may predict China quakes. Excerpt: BEIJING (Reuters) - China has come up with an earthquake prediction system which relies on the behavior of snakes, state media said on Thursday, two days after two quakes struck off neighboring Taiwan.
The earthquake bureau in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi autonomous region in southern China, had developed its system using ... snakes at local snake farms via video cameras linked to a broadband Internet connection. The video feed runs 24 hours per day.
"Of all the creatures on Earth, snakes are perhaps the most sensitive to earthquakes," bureau director Jiang Weisong was quoted as saying. Jiang said snakes, a popular restaurant dish in the south in the winter, could sense an earthquake from 120 km (70 miles) away, three to five days before it happens. They respond by behaving strangely.
"When an earthquake is about to occur, snakes will move out of their nests, even in the cold of winter," Jiang was quoted as saying.
"If the earthquake is a big one, the snakes will even smash into walls while trying to escape."....

2006 November 23. SCIENTISTS GET UNIQUE VIEW OF UNDERWATER ERUPTION. From NASA Earth Observatory. A combination of luck and being in the right place at the right time has allowed scientists to capture an undersea volcanic eruption for the first time

2006 November 21. HISTORIC VOLCANIC ERUPTION SHRUNK THE MIGHTY NILE RIVER. From NASA Earth Observatory. Volcanic eruptions in high-latitudes can greatly alter climate and distant river flows, including the Nile, according to a recent study funded in part by NASA.

2006 November 8. NEW RESEARCH REVEALS HIDDEN EARTHQUAKE TROUBLE SPOTS. From NASA Earth Observatory. A team of scientists has developed a technique to reveal earthquake-prone faults in forested mountainous regions.

2006 October 3. Novarupta. [NASA@Science] In June 1912, Novarupta-one of a chain of volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula-erupted in what turned out to be the largest blast of the twentieth century. ...Novarupta ...expelled three cubic miles of magma and ash into the air, which fell to cover an area of 3,000 square miles more than a foot deep. .... Novarupta is near the Arctic Circle and its impact on climate appears to be quite different from that of "ordinary" tropical volcanoes, according to recent research by climatologists using a NASA computer model. When a volcano anywhere erupts, it does more than spew clouds of ash, which can shadow a region from sunlight and cool it for a few days. It also spews sulfur dioxide. If the eruption is strongly vertical, it shoots that sulfur dioxide high into the stratosphere more than 10 miles above Earth. ...sulfur dioxide reacts with water vapor to form sulfate aerosols. Because these aerosols float above the altitude of rain, they don't get washed out. They linger, reflecting sunlight and cooling Earth's surface. This can create a kind of nuclear winter (a.k.a. "volcanic winter") for a year or more after an eruption. In April 1815, for instance, the Tambora volcano in Indonesia erupted. The following year, 1816, was called "the year without a summer," with snow falling across the United States in July. Even the smaller June 1991 eruption of Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the average temperature of the northern hemisphere summer of 1992 to well below average.
But both those volcanoes as well as Krakatau were in the tropics.
Novarupta is just south of the Arctic Circle.
...NASA GISS climate model showed that aerosols from an arctic eruption such as Novarupta tend to stay north of 30¼N-that is, no further south than the continental United States or Europe. ...This bottling up of Novarupta's aerosols in the north would make itself felt, strangely enough, in India. According to the computer model, the Novarupta blast would have weakened India's summer monsoon, producing "an abnormally warm and dry summer over northern India," says Robock. ...Do Indians need to keep an eye on Arctic volcanoes? The GISS computer says so.

2006 May 13. Thousands Flee From Active Volcano in Indonesia. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET. Excerpt: MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia (AP) -- Thousands of people fled the fertile slopes of Indonesia's most dangerous volcano Saturday as glowing lava oozed down the side and ash and rock spewed from the mountaintop, leading authorities to warn that an eruption could come soon. Villages on Mount Merapi were left virtually empty. Women, children and the elderly filled buses and trucks to be driven to shelters set up at government buildings and schools in nearby towns on the island of Java. Throughout the day, volcanic tremors shook the ground, some strong enough to send people running in fear. After nightfall, fiery magma from the volcano's cauldron lit up the bottoms of clouds above the nearly 9,700-foot peak, and cascades of bright red stones tumbled down the mountainside. ...Edi, a 30-year-old villager, said he would stay unless he received a clear signal from the mountain's spirits that an eruption was at hand. ''People around here believe that if Merapi is going to explode there will be a sign, a magical sign,'' he said, sitting on a mat sipping coffee. ''Either it comes in a dream, or in the form of a hallucination.'' Although most Indonesians are Muslim, many also follow animist beliefs and worship ancient spirits. Often at full moons, they trek to crater rims and throw in rice, jewelry and live animals to appease the volcanoes. Merapi, about 250 miles east of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, is one of at least 129 active volcanoes in the country, which lies along the Pacific ''Ring of Fire'' -- a series of fault lines that feed volcanoes stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and into Southeast Asia. Merapi last erupted in 1994, sending out a cloud of searing gas that burned 60 people to death. About 1,300 people were killed when it erupted in 1930....

Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift - long before the idea was commonly accepted.

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 2

3. What Heats the Earth's Interior?

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 3

2006 November 13. THE DARKENING SEA. By ELIZABETH KOLBERT, "The New Yorker" Issue of 2006-11-20. What carbon emissions are doing to the ocean. ...In the nineteen-nineties, researchers ... collected more than seventy thousand seawater samples ... analysis of ...which was completed in 2004, ... nearly half of all the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted ...has been absorbed by the sea. ...carbonic acid ...can change the water's pH. Already, humans have pumped enough carbon into the oceans...to produce a .1 decline in surface pH. Since pH ... is a logarithmic measure, a .1 drop represents a rise in acidity of about thirty per cent. The process is ... "ocean acidification," ... term coined in 2003 by two climate scientists, Ken Caldeira and Michael Wickett, ...at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. ...Caldeira ...to brief some members of Congress... was asked, 'What is the appropriate stabilization target for atmospheric CO2?' " ... "And I said, 'Well, I think it's inappropriate to think in terms of stabilization targets. I think we should think in terms of emissions targets.' And they said, 'O.K., what's the appropriate emissions target?' And I said, 'Zero.' "If you're talking about mugging little old ladies, you don't say, 'What's our target for the rate of mugging little old ladies?' You say, 'Mugging little old ladies is bad, and we're going to try to eliminate it.' ...Coral reefs are under threat.... When water temperatures rise too high, corals lose...the algae that nourish them. (The process is called "bleaching," because without their zooxanthellae corals appear white.) ...The seas have a built-in buffering capacity: if the water's pH starts to drop, shells and shell fragments that have been deposited on the ocean floor begin to dissolve, pushing the pH back up again. This buffering mechanism is highly effective, provided that acidification takes place on the same timescale as deep-ocean circulation. (One complete exchange of surface and bottom water takes thousands of years.) ...Currently, CO2 is being released into the air at least three times and perhaps as much as thirty times as quickly ...so fast that buffering by ocean sediments is not even a factor....

2005 November 23. HOW DOES RADIOACTIVE DECAY WORK?, Teaching Quantitative Skills in the Geosciences, Jennifer M. Wenner, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, SERC, The concepts of spontaneous decay, isotopes, and half-lives are discussed as well as how geoscientists make use of radioactive decay in dating beds and deposits. This page is paired with another which tackles the mathematical issues behind exponential growth and decay equations to allow educators to teach both the abstract concept and the concrete example.

2005 February. The Virtual Physics Lab session is about the particle model of matter and looks at examples of the behavior of matter on a macroscopic level that are best explained by assuming matter was made of particles.

2005 February. USGS Animation of recent earthquakes worldwide

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 3

4. How Does the Sun Shine?

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 4

2007 April 24. NASA Releases 3D Images of Sun. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: GREENBELT, Md. (AP) -- NASA released the first three-dimensional images of the sun Monday, saying the photos taken from twin spacecraft may lead to better predictions of solar eruptions that can affect communications and power lines on Earth. ... 'Wow!''' scientist Simon Plunkett said as he explained the images to a room full of journalists and scientists wearing 3D glasses. The images from the STEREO spacecraft (for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) are available on the Internet and at museums and science centers nationwide. The twin spacecraft, launched in October, are orbiting the Sun, one slightly ahead of the Earth and one behind. The separation, just like the distance between our two eyes, provides the depth perception that allows the 3D images to be obtained. That depth perception is also particularly helpful for studying a type of solar eruption called a coronal mass ejection. Along with overloading power lines and disrupting satellite communications, the eruptions can endanger astronauts on spacewalks. Scientists would like to improve predictions of the arrival time from the current day or so to a few hours, said Russell Howard, principal investigator for the Naval Research Laboratory project. See http://www.nasa.gov/stereo

2005 May 24. Solar Fireworks Signal New Space Weather Mystery. NASA RELEASE 05-132. The most intense burst of solar radiation in five decades accompanied a large solar flare on January 20. It shook space weather theory and highlighted the need for new forecasting techniques, according to several presentations at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting this week in New Orleans. The solar flare, which occurred at 2 a.m. EST, tripped radiation monitors all over the planet and scrambled detectors on spacecraft. The shower of energetic protons came minutes after the first sign of the flare. This flare was an extreme example of the type of radiation storm that arrives too quickly to warn interplanetary astronauts. "This flare produced the largest solar radiation signal on the ground in nearly 50 years," said Dr. Richard Mewaldt of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. ... "But we were really surprised when we saw how fast the particles reached their peak intensity and arrived at Earth." Normally it takes two or more hours for a dangerous proton shower to reach maximum intensity at Earth after a solar flare. The particles from the January 20 flare peaked about 15 minutes after the first sign. ...The Transitional Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) ... has identified a possible source of the magnetic stress that causes solar flares. The sunspots that give off the very largest (X-class) flares appear to rotate in the days around the flare. "This rotation stretches and twists the magnetic field lines over the sunspots", Nightingale said. "We have seen it before virtually every X-flare that TRACE has observed since it was launched and more than half of all flares in that time." However, rotating sunspots are not the whole story. The unique flare came at the end of a string of five other very large flares from the same sunspot group, and no one knows why this one produced more sudden high energy particles than the first four. "It means we really don't understand how the sun works," Lin said. "We need to continue to operate and exploit our fleet of solar-observing spacecraft to identify how it works."

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 4

5. What Is Light?

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 5

2008 Jul 24. NASA Satellites Discover What Powers Northern Lights. NASA RELEASE: 08-185. Excerpt: GREENBELT, Md. -- Researchers using a fleet of five NASA satellites have discovered that explosions of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon power substorms that cause sudden brightenings and rapid movements of the aurora borealis, called the Northern Lights. The culprit turns out to be magnetic reconnection, a common process that occurs throughout the universe when stressed magnetic field lines suddenly snap to a new shape, like a rubber band that's been stretched too far. "We discovered what makes the Northern Lights dance," said Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles. Angelopoulos is the principal investigator for the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission, or THEMIS....

2008 Mar 20. SPRING IS AURORA SEASON. NASA Earth Observatory News. For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights. In other words, spring is aurora season. Observations from NASA spacecraft are shedding new light on this old mystery.

2007 December 11. THEMIS Discoveries. A fleet of NASA spacecraft, launched less than eight months ago, has made three important discoveries about spectacular eruptions of Northern Lights called "substorms" and the source of their power. NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission observed the dynamics of a rapidly developing substorm, confirmed the existence of giant magnetic ropes and witnessed small explosions in the outskirts of Earth's magnetic field. The discoveries began on March 23, when a substorm erupted over Alaska and Canada, producing vivid auroras for more than two hours. A network of ground cameras organized to support THEMIS photographed the display from below while the satellites measured particles and fields from above. "The substorm behaved quite unexpectedly," says Vassilis Angelopoulos, the mission's principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles. "The auroras surged westward twice as fast as anyone thought possible, crossing 15 degrees of longitude in less than one minute. The storm traversed an entire polar time zone, or 400 miles, in 60 seconds flat." ...Angelopoulos was quite impressed with the substorm's power and he estimated the total energy of the two-hour event at five hundred thousand billion Joules. That's equivalent to the energy of one magnitude 5.5 earthquake . Where does all that energy come from?
THEMIS may have found the answer. "The satellites have found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun," said David Sibeck,
project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras."
A magnetic rope is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner's rope. Spacecraft have detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft was insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS' five identical micro-satellites
were able to perform the feat. "THEMIS encountered its first magnetic rope on May 20," said Sibeck."It was very large, about as wide as Earth, and located approximately
40,000 miles (70,000 km) above Earth's surface in a region called the magnetopause." The magnetopause is where the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field meet and push against one another like sumo wrestlers locked in combat. There, the rope formed and unraveled in just a few minutes, providing a brief but significant conduit for solar wind energy...

2004 July 13. Will Compasses Point South?. By WILLIAM J. BROAD -- The Earth's magnetic field is collapsing and may eventually reappear with opposite polarity. But what effect will that have on us?

2003 December 3. Cracks in the Earth's Magnetic Sheild - California-sized cracks in our planet's magnetic field can remain open for hours, allowing the solar wind to gush through and power stormy space weather--this according to new observations from Earth-orbiting satellites.

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 5

6. Energy Flow In the Atmosphere

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 6

2008 May 19. Study Says Global Warming Not Worsening Hurricanes. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: WASHINGTON (AP) -- Global warming isn't to blame for the recent jump in hurricanes in the Atlantic, concludes a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position has shifted on the subject. Not only that, warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released Sunday.
... new study, based on a computer model, argues ''against the notion that we've already seen a really dramatic increase in Atlantic hurricane activity resulting from greenhouse warming.''
The study, published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, predicts that by the end of the century the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic will fall by 18 percent.
The number of hurricanes making landfall in the United States and its neighbors -- anywhere west of Puerto Rico -- will drop by 30 percent because of wind factors.
The biggest storms -- those with winds of more than 110 mph -- would only decrease in frequency by 8 percent. Tropical storms, those with winds between 39 and 73 mph, would decrease by 27 percent.
It's not all good news from Knutson's study, however. His computer model also forecasts that hurricanes and tropical storms will be wetter and fiercer. Rainfall within 30 miles of a hurricane should jump by 37 percent and wind strength should increase by about 2 percent, Knutson's study says. ...On the Net: Nature Geoscience: http://www.nature.com/naturegeoscience National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.noaa.gov/ ....

2008 January. High Peaks, Dirty Snow. By Allen Best, Forest Magazine, Winter 2008
The winter dust storms in Colorado's San Juan Mountains have their
own, somewhat predictable schedule. ...Since they began documenting
the storms several years ago, scientists have recorded up to eight
dust storms per year among the mining towns of Telluride, Silverton
and Ouray.... digging pits into the snowpack in the San Juan Mountains reveals something that is rather like an angel-food cake layered with
chocolate. The "chocolate," of course, is the dust, and it's more than a mere oddity. Research conducted during the past several years has traced much of the dust to nearby deserts of the American Southwest. Some evidence already collected suggests that the relocation of the dust is not natural, but rather the result of disturbances of fragile
desert soils in Arizona and New Mexico. Scientists studying sediments
in high mountain lakes seek to determine whether such dust storms
existed centuries ago, before livestock herding, four-wheeling and
massive road building began in the Southwest. The working hypothesis
is that today's dust is something new.
What is clear is that the changing climate-warmer, with earlier
springs-is causing the mountain snow to melt more rapidly across the
West. Peak runoff in springtime occurs three to four weeks earlier
than it has in the recent past. New research in the San Juans points
to the dust storms as causing additional acceleration of the melting,
by about a month....Every child who has used black buttons to make the eyes of a snowman would know the principle, if not its name. Albedo is the extent to which a surface will reflect heat, i.e., solar energy. A darker surface will absorb the solar radiation, causing snow to melt faster and the button eyes to disappear. In this case, the albedo of the clean snow left it standing two to three inches above the darker, dirtier snow....the budding snow scientist, ...Tom Painter ...did ... fully realize the potentially significant role of this vagrant dust in the hydrology of the mountain snowpack-and the further role it may play in causing the planet's warming to accelerate....

2007 November 29. My Carbon Bathtub Runneth Over. Why we need to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050, explained using an animated simulation of a bathtub. Simulation is based on a system dynamics model of the global carbon cycle and climate system.

2007 October 22. Caribbean Urged to Face Warming Risks. Associated Press. Excerpt: SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Caribbean tourism industry, the lifeblood for many island economies, needs to brace itself for stronger hurricanes, more frequent droughts and rising sea levels resulting from global warming, scientists said Monday.
The Caribbean, where more than half the population lives within a mile of the coast, faces some of the greatest risks from climate change, according to the expert panel at the Caribbean Tourism Organization meeting in San Juan.
"The region as a whole is really vulnerable _ it's sand, sun and beaches," said Ulric Trotz, science adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center in Belize.
Trotz said governments should limit development along eroding coastlines, protect natural resources including reefs and mangroves and take other steps before global warming accelerates in the coming decades, as some experts forecast.
Already, rising ocean temperatures have been blamed for killing off coral that sustains significant marine life and fueling monstrous storms. This year was the first on record when two Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes _ Felix and Dean, which both gained strength in the Caribbean _ made landfall in the same season....

2005 April 29 . NASA RELEASE: 05-111. Scientists Confirm Earth's Energy is Out of Balance. Scientists have concluded more energy is being absorbed from the sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth's energy "out of balance" and warming the globe.Scientists from NASA, Columbia University, New York, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. used satellites, data from buoys and computer models to study the Earth's oceans. They confirmed the energy imbalance by using precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years. The study reveals Earth's energy imbalance is large by standards of the planet's history. The imbalance is 0.85 watts per meter squared. That will cause an additional warming of 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. To understand the difference, think of a one-watt light bulb shining over an area of one square meter (10.76 square feet). Although it doesn't seem like much, adding up the number of feet around the world creates a big effect. To put this number into perspective, an imbalance of one-watt per square meter, maintained for the past 10,000 years is enough to melt ice equivalent to one kilometer (.6 mile) of sea level, if there were that much ice. ... "Warmer waters increase the likelihood of accelerated ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise during this century," Hansen said. .... Data has shown they have risen by approximately 3.1 centimeters or 1.26 inches per decade. Although 3.1 centimeters is a small change, the rate of increase is twice as large as in the preceding century. There are positive feedbacks that come into play, as the area of ice melt increases.

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 6

7. What Causes Thunderstorms and Tornadoes?

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 7

2008 Sep 15. Photos from hurricane Ike.

2008 Apr 15. Measuring a Hurricane by Sound Underwater. By HENRY FOUNTAIN, NY Times. Excerpt: There are a couple of ways to forecast the destructive potential of a hurricane so that people in harm's way can take adequate precautions. Satellite images of cloud patterns can be analyzed to estimate peak wind speeds, but the estimates are often way off the mark. Specialized aircraft can fly into a storm to measure the winds directly, but the flights are costly. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology propose a third way: listening to a storm underwater.
In a paper to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, Nicholas C. Makris and a former graduate student, Joshua D. Wilson, report a strong correlation between the intensity of sound recorded by an undersea microphone in the mid-Atlantic and the wind power of a hurricane that passed over it. They say that such microphones, known as hydrophones, could be a safe and relatively inexpensive means of estimating hurricane force....

2007 November 5. To show how insolation is affected by latitude. From: Stephen J. Edberg
... to show how insolation is affected by latitude: Take a pair of thermometers, each taped to some cardboard, outside on a sunny day. Prop one up so that the cardboard's plane is normal to the direction of the Sun. Lay the other one on the ground. Give them a chance to equalize: the propped thermometer will be much warmer than the one on the ground.
Caveats: This demonstration is much more effective on cold sunny days than on warm sunny days. It is better done early or late in the day when the Sun is closer to the horizon, not around noon.
You can actually do this indoors on a rainy day if you use a good spotlight or projector, equidistant from the two thermometer bulbs. If you have some small thermometers you can tape them to different latitudes on a globe and try the experiment with a spotlight, projector, or desk lamp. (Make sure you use a tungsten bulb, not fluorescent or LED.)

2007 May 29. Will Warming Lead to a Rise in Hurricanes? By CORNELIA DEAN. NY Times. Excerpt: When people worry about the effects of global warming, they worry more about hurricanes than anything else. In surveys, almost three-quarters of Americans say there will be more and stronger hurricanes in a warming world. By contrast, fewer than one-quarter worry about increased coastal flooding. ...Researchers hope to better predict storms like Katrina.... There is no doubt that as the world warms, seas will rise, increasing the flood risk, simply because warmer water occupies more space. (And if the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets melt, the rise will be far greater.) It seems similarly logical that as the world warms, hurricanes will be more frequent or more powerful or both. After all, they draw their strength from warm ocean waters. But while many scientists hold this view, there is far less consensus, in part because of new findings on other factors that may work against stronger, more frequent storms. "Global warming is as real as it gets," Richard A. Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, .... But as for its link to hurricanes, Mr. Anthes said, "I don't think it's been proved conclusively." ...One question meteorologists and climate experts can answer quickly is an obvious one: What happened to the hurricane season of 2006? Viewed from the perspective of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, it was a bust (or a boon). Not a single hurricane struck the United States. But last year a persistent Bermuda high, sitting unusually far out in the Atlantic, and air currents from an unexpected and quick-forming El Niño system ... diminished the storms' potential to strike the United States. ...even though there were only slightly fewer named storms than average (9 instead of 11), about as many became hurricanes as on average (5 instead of 6) and, as in an ordinary year, 2 hurricanes with winds of more than 111 miles per hour, the standard for Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.
...53 percent of Americans live within 50 miles of a coast....

2006 December 11. NASA AIRCRAFT CAPTURES WINDY DETAILS IN HURRICANE'S UPS AND DOWNS. NASA Earth Observatory News. - In 2005, scientists using NASA aircraft measured the internal structure of Hurricane Dennis, giving clues about the evolution of a hurricane's warm inner core and other factors related to their formation.

2006 September 27. NASA LAUNCHES HURRICANE DATA PORTAL FOR SCIENTISTS, EDUCATORS, AND APPLICATION USERS - A new hurricane web portal is designed for viewing and studying hurricanes with a variety of measurements from satellite-based NASA instruments. NASA Earth Observatory.

2006 September 26. NASA TECHNOLOGY CAPTURES MASSIVE HURRICANE WAVES. NASA research is helping to increase knowledge about the behavior of hurricane waves that pose a serious threat to mariners and coastal communities. NASA Earth Observatory.

2006 September 19. Are humans causing stronger hurricanes?Excerpt: a continuing controversy ... Are humans causing stronger hurricanes? A study released on September 11, 2006 ruled out "natural causes" as the primary reason why ocean waters have warmed where hurricanes form over the last 100 years. Tom Wigley, a climate scientist and study co-author, told Earth & Sky that "the changes cannot be caused by natural fluctuations, which just leaves human factors as the dominant cause." Wigley said those human factors include greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

2006 September. The Gathering Storm. Catalyst Magazine, Union of Concerned Scientists. By Brenda Ekwurzel. Excerpt: By now, everyone has heard of the possible relationship between hurricanes and global warming. What does the science really tell us and what can we do about it? Rapid population growth in coastal regions has placed many more people and structures in the path of storms, increasing the potential for casualties, property damage, and financial hardship when these storms make landfall. And as reported by the media in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, global warming may be making matters worse. Recent scientific evidence suggests a link between the destructive power (or intensity) of hurricanes and higher ocean temperatures driven in large part by our changing climate.
...Scientists have recently looked at potential correlations between ocean temperatures and storm trends worldwide over the past several decades. One study, which combined each storm's duration and maximum wind speed, found that the destructive power of storms has increased around 70 percent in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans over the last 30 years. Another study revealed that the percentage of hurricanes classified as Category 4 or 5 (the most intense storms) worldwide has increased over the same period, correlating with the concurrent rise in sea surface temperatures in the regions where storms typically originate ....
In a third independent approach, researchers analyzed surface wind and temperature records between 1958 and 2001 and confirmed the marked increase in storm intensity around the world. Still more studies are continuing to test the connection between storm intensity and warmer temperatures even as insurance agencies are revising their risk analysis for coastal regions....

2006 September. "Large human influence" found in hurricane-breeding waters, say scientists. Earth & Sky Blog.

Hurricanes

• Hurricanes http://hurricanes.noaa.gov/
• Hurricanes: A Compendium of Information
• For GSS Energy Flow, chapter 7 right column
• NASA's Hurricane Resource Page - This site provides a wide variety of information regarding recent and historic hurricanes. A collection of links feature information including the latest images and animations from recent hurricanes, in depth web pages about hurricanes, educational tools and products, hurricane topics and the latest hurricane news.
• NASA Hurricane Education - Link to NASA educational tools on hurricanes including posters, visualizations and graphics, and classroom activities.
• NASA's Earth Observatory page on Hurricanes: The Greatest Storms On Earth
• Hurricane Data Portal
  

Atmosphere/Weather/Climate

• National Weather Service Interactive Weather Information Network
• NOAA Climate Prediction Center
• NOAA National Climatic Data Center
• National Weather Service Headquarters
• NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory —http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mlb/enso/mlbnino.html
• NOAA ENSO Home Page (El Nino)
• Unisys Weather (mapped images of forecast models)
• NOAA Storm Prediction Center
• Naval Pacific Meteorology and Oceanography Center, Joint Typhoon Warning Center
• WSI Corp Intellicast—http://www.intellicast.com
• National Drought Mitigation Center
• Global Fire Monitoring Center
• NOAA National Hurricane Center
• Environment Canada— http://weather.ec.gc.ca/
• NOAA National Oceanographic Data Center
• NCAR Forecast Models— http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/
• National Ice Center (polar ice conditions, icebergs)
• Colorado State Arctic Oscillation Web Site (Arctic updates)
• Univ. of Washington Pacific Decadal Oscillation Web Site
• Columbia University North Atlantic Oscillation Web Site
• The Weather Underground— http://www.underground.com
• Cable TV Weather Channel — http://www.weather.com
• USA Today Newspaper (forecasts)
• World Meteorological Organization— http://www.wmo.ch
• National Weather Service Forecast Office
• NOAA North Central River Forecast Center
• University of Minnesota/State Climatology Office

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 7

8. El Nino

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 8

2008 May 1. Next decade 'may see no warming'. By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News website. The Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted. A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming. However, temperatures will again be rising quickly by about 2020, they say.
Other climate scientists have welcomed the research, saying it may help societies plan better for the future.
...The key to the new prediction is the natural cycle of ocean temperatures called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which is closely related to the warm currents that bring heat from the tropics to the shores of Europe.
The cause of the oscillation is not well understood, but the cycle appears to come round about every 60 to 70 years.
..."One message from our study is that in the short term, you can see changes in the global mean temperature that you might not expect given the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)," said Noel Keenlyside from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University.
His group's projection diverges from other computer models only for about 15-20 years; after that, the curves come back together and temperatures rise.
...Modelling of climatic events in the oceans is difficult, simply because there is relatively little data on some of the key processes, such as the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) - sometimes erroneously known as the Gulf Stream - which carries heat northwards in the Atlantic.
...Looking forward, the model projects a weakening of the MOC and a resulting cooling of north Atlantic waters, which will act to keep temperatures in check around the world, much as the warming and cooling associated with El Nino and La Nina in the Pacific bring global consequences....

2008 Mar 1. HEAVY RAIN FLOODS SOUTH AMERICA. NASA Earth Observatory News. Persistent, heavier-than-normal rains throughout February and March 2008 triggered flooding across parts of northern and central South America. La Niña conditions in the Pacific may have caused the unusual rainfall.

2008 April 4. Global temperatures 'to decrease'. By Roger Harrabin, BBC News environment analyst. Excerpt: La Niña caused some of the coldest temperatures in memory in China. Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 due to the cooling effect of the La Niña current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said. The World Meteorological Organisation's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer. This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory. But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years. 'Variability'
La Niña and El Niño are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world. El Niño warms the planet when it happens, La Niña cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Niña. It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.
Refers to the extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific ...Increased sea temperatures on the western side of the Pacific means the atmosphere has more energy and frequency of heavy rain and thunderstorms is increased. ....Typically lasts for up to 12 months and generally less damaging event than the stronger El Niño.

2008 January 10. NASA Observes La Niña: This 'Little Girl' Makes a Big Impression Excerpt: Cool, wet conditions in the Northwest, frigid weather on the Plains, and record dry conditions in the Southeast, all signs that La Niña is in full swing. With winter gearing up, a moderate La Niña is hitting its peak. And we are just beginning to see the full effects of this oceanographic phenomenon, as La Niña episodes are typically strongest in January. A La Niña event occurs when cooler than normal sea surface temperatures form along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, specifically in the eastern to central Pacific. The La Niña we are experiencing now has a significant presence in the eastern part of the ocean. The cooler water temperatures associated with La Niña are caused by an increase in easterly sea surface winds. Under normal conditions these winds force cooler water from below up to the surface of the ocean. When the winds increase in speed, more cold water from below is forced up, cooling the ocean surface. "With this La Niña, the sea-surface temperatures are about two degrees colder than normal in the eastern Pacific and that's a pretty significant difference," says David Adamec of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "I know it doesn't sound like much, but remember this is water that probably covers an area the size of the United States. It's like you put this big air conditioner out there - and the atmosphere is going to feel it." While this "air conditioner" may be located in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, it has a great influence on the weather here in the United States and across the globe. ...The Northwest generally experiences cooler, wetter weather during a La Niña. On the Great Plains, residents normally see a colder than normal winter and southeastern states traditionally experience below average rainfall. ...The increased circulation that brings up cold water from below also brings up with it nutrients from the deeper waters. These nutrients feed the organisms at the bottom of the food chain, starting a reaction that increases life in the ocean. NASA's SeaWiFS satellite documented this increase in hytoplankton during the last La Niña period in 1998. La Niña and El Niño episodes tend to occur every three to five years. La Niñas are often preceded by an El Niño, however this cycle is not guaranteed. The lengths of La Niña events vary as well. "We need to watch to see if this La Niña diminishes, because they can last for multiple years....

2006 September 23. Nature provides "ecosystem services". Earth & Sky Radio Show.

2006 September 19. El Nino mystery solved, monsoon forecasts improved. Earth & Sky Radio Show.

2005 December 1. Alarm over dramatic weakening of Gulf Stream. Ian Sample, science correspondent, The Guardian Excerpt: Slowing of current by a third in 12 years could bring more extreme weather. Temperatures in Britain likely to drop by one degree in next decade. The powerful ocean current that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters from the tropics has weakened dramatically in recent years, a consequence of global warming that could trigger more severe winters and cooler summers across the region, scientists warn today. Researchers on a scientific expedition in the Atlantic Ocean measured the strength of the current between Africa and the east coast of America and found that the circulation has slowed by 30% since a previous expedition 12 years ago. The current, which drives the Gulf Stream, delivers the equivalent of 1m power stations-worth of energy to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10C in some regions. ... Previous expeditions to check the current flow in 1957, 1981 and 1992 found only minor changes in its strength, although a slowing was picked up in a further expedition in 1998.... If the current remains as weak as it is, temperatures in Britain are likely to drop by an average of 1C in the next decade, according to Harry Bryden at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton who led the study. ...The current is essentially a huge oceanic conveyor belt that transports heat from equatorial regions towards the Arctic circle. Warm surface water coming up from the tropics gives off heat as it moves north until eventually, it cools so much in northern waters that it sinks and circulates back to the south. There it warms again, rises and heads back north. The constant sinking in the north