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You are browsing the archive for December 2014 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.

30 December 2014

A Sinking Jewel of Sand and Sea

One of the great thing about living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland is being nearby to a jewel of sea and sand, Assateague National Seashore is a place my family and I visit frequently, but most folks don’t know that it is also one of the spots where sea level is rising the fastest.. The National Seashore’s Facebook Page had an interesting post today about it, and they also …

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24 December 2014

The Earth From Space on Christmas Eve

Here are some full disk satellite images from around the world on this Christmas Eve. This is an IR image from GOES East. This is a visible light image from the European Meteosat, in almost true color. Visible light image from Meteosat VISSIR over India: and the latest IR image from the GOES West Satellite- Courtesy NASA Goddard Space Flight Center here in Maryland. Happy Holidays to you wherever you …

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23 December 2014

A Conversation With An Amazing Science Writer at The AGU in San Francisco

Writing about science is hard. Doing it very well is VERY hard. I had a nice long chat with my friend Bob Henson at the AGU meeting in San Francisco last Thursday. Bob is an amazing science writer who is leaving NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) after 25 years, and will be blogging for Weather Underground starting in a few weeks. He will be sorely missed at NCAR, but …

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22 December 2014

Eleven Years of Hard Work for A Few Frantic Days of Science

I’m eating lunch and talking with my friend Bud Ward (Yale Climate Connections) at the AGU meeting in San francisco Wednesday, when I see a gentleman with a sticker on his lap-top that says “MY OTHER VEHICLE IS ON THE WAY TO PLUTO”. Now, I had to find out more, so here is a short clip using my iPhone talking with Michael Buckley of the New Horizons mission to Pluto. …

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20 December 2014

..and That’s What Science is all About Charlie Brown

I am just back from a whirlwind trip to the AGU Meeting in San Francisco. 25,000 Earth scientists in one place, and it’s among the largest science meetings on the planet. I shot some videos that I will post over the weekend, but in the meantime here is a talk I made in October 2013 (in Washington) as part of the AGU Science Speaker series.

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16 December 2014

Can You See Holiday Lights From Space? Yes!

NASA’s Suomi Satellite has an amazing sensor that can see the Earth at night very well. The pics below are a comparison of normal city lights from space, and the green shows the added lights from all the holiday decorations! Pretty cool ay! NASA has a video here and the pics of our region are below. Here are further details from NASA: With a new look at daily data from …

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15 December 2014

Cool Science Pics

Thought I’d share some cool pics taken from Space today. The first one below is from the past week, and is a great view from the ISS courtesy of Astronaut Barry Wilmore. Notice the city lights shining through the clouds. I forecasted a sunny Sunday in Maryland and Delaware today. Missed it by THAT much! Severe storms hit Oklahoma Sunday evening ahead of a powerful tropospheric low pressure system. The …

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12 December 2014

Geminid Meteors This Weekend

Skies should be clear over some parts of the country to get a view of up to 120 meteors per hour Saturday night. If you are in the clear, then find a dark spot and bundle up! The best time to see them will be before midnight because the Moon will rise around Midnight and will wash the sky out with its light. More from NASA here! : It’s the …

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What Do Category 5 Hurricanes Have To Do With The Amazon River?

This freshwater plume inhibits the mixing of colder water beneath the surface, and thus can add a lot of heat to an already powerful hurricane. The NASA Aquarius satellite has a sensor that can measure ocean surface salinity, and it’s data produced the the video below. A paper about this plume and how it can affect hurricanes was published in Geophysical research Letters in 2012. It’s free to read here. …

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11 December 2014

Super-Fast Jet Makes Jets To Europe Super-Fast

Departures were being delayed from the U.S. to the UK to keep aircraft from arriving to early in Europe. You have to feel for the folks flying from Heathrow to Seattle though; add two hours to an already LONG flight! I experienced this once on a flight from Atlanta to London, and arrived an hour early. We sat on the plane though waiting for a gate to open up!

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