10 July 2018
Think Humans Can’t Control the Earth’s Weather?? Don’t be Silly.
Posted by Dan Satterfield
The new GOES-16 satellite produces stunning images every day of weather phenomena, but this is something that surprised me!
The NWS at Grand Forks in North Dakota posted the image below on Twitter today. Note the yellow speckles in the upper part of the image.
Image from NWS Grand Forks, ND.
That’s Canola. The bright yellow is visible from space using the true color GOES-16 images. With the increased reflectivity (albedo) of the ground, I wondered how much the bright yellow Canola fields are cooling the temperatures in that area. That can be answered: I looked at the surface temperatures using the thermal IR channel from the NASA Aqua and Terra satellites.
Sure enough, it shows up!
From NASA Worldview using the Terra Satellite. Red areas are hotter ground temperatures.
The next time someone tells you that human activity cannot possibly affect the weather, show them this. You could also show them the image below from around Midnight Tuesday morning. It shows the urban heat island effect around DC and Baltimore on a clear night with light winds.
This image and the one above are from the NASA Aqua and Terra satellites. In this image, blue is warmer ground than purple.
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.