On the cusp of our atmosphere live a thin group of seasonal electric blue clouds. Forming 50 miles above the poles in summer, these clouds are known as noctilucent clouds or polar mesospheric clouds — PMCs. A recent NASA long-duration balloon mission observed these clouds over the course of five days at their home in the mesosphere. The resulting photos, which scientists have just begun to analyze, will help us better understand turbulence in the atmosphere, as well as in oceans, lakes and other planetary atmospheres, and may even improve weather forecasting.
On July 8, 2018, NASA’s PMC Turbo mission launched a giant balloon to study PMCs at a height of 50 miles above the surface. For five days, the balloon floated through the stratosphere from its launch at Esrange, Sweden, across the Arctic to Western Nunavut, Canada. During its flight, cameras aboard the balloon captured 6 million high-resolution images filling up 120 terabytes of data storage — most of which included a variety of PMC displays, revealing the processes leading to turbulence. Scientists are now beginning to go through the images and the first look has been promising.
ICESat-2 is a follow-up to the original ICESat mission, which was decommissioned in 2010. When the project entered its first phase in 2010, it was expected to be ready for launch as soon as 2015. In December 2012, NASA reported that they expected the project to launch in 2016. In the following years, technical issues with the mission’s only onboard instrument, ATLAS, delayed the mission further, pushing the expected launch back from late 2016 to May 2017. In July 2014, NASA submitted a report to Congress detailing the reasons for the delay and a projected budget overrun, as is required by law for NASA projects which spend at least 15% over budget. In order to finance the budget overrun, NASA has diverted funds from other planned satellite missions, such as the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite. The launch took place on 15 September 2018 at 15:02 UTC from Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 2 aboard a Delta 2 7420-10C. To maintain data continuity in the interim between the decommissioning of ICESat and the launch of ICESat-2, NASA’s airborne Operation IceBridge mission has continued to collect polar topography data using its onboard ATM lidar sensor.
“Clean technology refers to any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Clean technology includes a broad range of technology related to recycling, renewable energy (wind power, solar power, biomass, hydropower, biofuels, etc.), information technology, green transportation, electric motors, green chemistry, lighting, Greywater, and more. Environmental finance is a method by which new clean technology projects that have proven that they are “additional” or “beyond business as usual” can obtain financing through the generation of carbon credits. A project that is developed with concern for climate change mitigation (such as a Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism project) is also known as a carbon project.
While there is no standard definition of “clean technology”, it has been described by Clean Edge, a clean technology research firm, as “a diverse range of products, services, and processes that harness renewable materials and energy sources, dramatically reduce the use of natural resources, and cut or eliminate emissions and wastes.” It notes that “Clean technologies are competitive with, if not superior to, their conventional counterparts. Many also offer significant additional benefits, notably their ability to improve the lives of those in both developed and developing countries”
“A combination of lightning, drought, and human activity caused fires to scorch more than one-third of Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Within a year, burn scars cast a sharp outline on the 793,880 acres affected by fire, distinguishing wide sections of recovering forest, meadows, grasslands and wetlands from unburned areas of the park. After more than two decades, satellite instruments can still detect these scars from space. In this time-lapse video, a series of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2018 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone’s forests following the 1988 fire season. Landsat Project Scientist Jeff Masek talks about how Landsat satellites detect the burn scars from space and distinguish them from healthy, un-burned forest and from new growth. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape.”
“A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II rocket carrying launch NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission lifts off from Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on September 15, 2018. ICESat-2 is the 155th and final launch of the Delta II rocket. From its origin as the launch vehicle for the first Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites to NASA’s Earth observing, science and interplanetary satellites including Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity to vital commercial communication and imaging satellites, the Delta II rocket has truly earned its place in space history.”
“Hurricane Florence is the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the Carolinas and the ninth wettest tropical cyclone to affect the contiguous United States. The sixth named storm, third hurricane, and the first major hurricane of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, Florence originated from a strong tropical wave that emerged off the west coast of Africa on August 30, 2018. Steady organization resulted in the formation of a tropical depression on the next day near Cape Verde. Progressing along a steady west-northwest trajectory, the system acquired tropical storm strength on September 1, and fluctuated in strength for several days over open ocean. An unexpected bout of rapid intensification ensued on September 4–5, culminating with Florence becoming a Category 4 major hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale with estimated maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 km/h).
Environmental conditions tore the storm apart, and Florence degraded to a tropical storm by September 7. Shifting steering currents led to a westward turn into a more suitable environment; the system regained hurricane strength on September 9 and major hurricane status by the following day. At 16:00 UTC on September 10, Florence again became a Category 4 hurricane, later reaching a new peak intensity with winds of 140 mph (220 km/h) and a central pressure of 939 mbar (27.7 inHg). Afterwards, Florence weakened slightly as it underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, but began to restrengthen late on September 11. However, increasing wind shear caused the storm’s winds to gradually taper over the next few days, though the storm’s wind field continued to grow. By the evening of September 13, Florence had been downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane. Early the next day on September 14, Florence made landfall just south of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, and weakened further as it slowly moved inland.
Early in the storm’s history, the system brought squall conditions to the Cape Verde islands, resulting in some landslides and flooding; however, overall impacts were negligible. With the threat of a major impact in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States becoming evident by September 7, the governors of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Maryland, and the mayor of Washington, D.C. declared a state of emergency. On September 10 and September 11, the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia all issued mandatory evacuation orders for some of their coastal communities, as it was expected that emergency management personnel would be unable to reach people in those areas once the storm arrived.”
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