Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

To me the most fascinating part of synoptic forecasting is Satellite Meteorology. I can still remember working in Tulsa at KJRH TV where we had a GOES Unifax machine. Every 15 minutes a high resolution image would spit out. During the day the resolution was 1 km on a visible image. This was good enough to see jet contrails at times.

Jet Contrails from the NASA Modis Satellite- It sees true colour. GOES does not. These contrails keep the nights warmer and days slightly cooler over much of America.

One afternoon a large contrail was visible across Northeast Oklahoma and I ran outside the station and there it was! I was looking at the bottom of it, the satellite was seeing the top from 36,000km away. This seems like no big deal now, but in 1978, it was a very big deal!

TV viewers have since grown very accustomed to seeing satellite images on TV weather reports and now even online. What the average person does not know is just how incredibly valuable these images are.

It was once said that if the GOES Satellites could see nothing but hurricanes in the ocean, they would be worth 100 times the money spent to build them and put them in orbit. I certainly agree.

They do however see MUCH more than just hurricanes. Read on learn some of the incredible ways these satellites are making accurate forecasts and early severe weather warnings possible.

First some misconceptions.

1. Satellite images are not in colour. TV Weather graphic equipment remaps the cloud images over colour maps. The next generation of weather satellites GOES R will be able to see almost true colour. It is really not that necessary to forecasting anyhow.

2. These satellites are VERY high. About 1/10th the way to the moon. The reason is that at 36k km they orbit the earth once a day, and since the Earth turns once a day, they appear to hover over the same spot. If one breaks, the Space Shuttle cannot even get one tenth of the way up to fix them.

3. They are called GOES for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. We use two if them in the USA. Goes East and GOES West. They are in orbit over the Equator and cannot see well in the high latitudes because of the curve of the Earth. Alaska, and Northern Canada forecasters use the Polar Orbiting satellites, but only get a few pics a day. The current operational east satellite is GOES 12. GOES 13 and 14 are in orbit, but in storage until needed.

GOES Water Vapor IR imagery Image from July 4 05Z

4. They take mages every 15 minutes and can do an image over a small area every 7 minutes in rapid scan mode.

5. They do not have cameras per say. They have sensors that detect electromagnetic radiation. The visible light that your camera records when you take a picture is electromagnetic radiation. It’s light in the visible part of the spectrum.

X-rays and the radio waves from your favourite FM station are “light” as well. We humans just cannot see that light. So is infra-red radiation that “night goggles” use. You can buy video cameras now that see in the IR wavelengths.

The GOES imaging sensors actually see electromagnetic radiation in 5 different bands. One visible and 4 in the infra red. The GOES also has another sensor called the sounding radiometer. The sounder imager can actually detect temperatures and moisture at different levels in the atmosphere. Even under clear skies.

We can actually take a sounding without launching a weather balloon. (They cost you the tax payer about 100$ a pop too)

Even in daytime we get both the IR and visible images. At night we only get the IR of course. The visible channel can resolve objects bigger than about 1 km square. The IR imager is 4 km. One image you see rarely on TV is the Water Vapor IR images. These images look almost like an atmospheric X-ray and are very valuable to forecasters like me.

IR Image from GOES East Midnight 4 July 2009. See the storms in Kansas!

Using water vapor imagery we can see the outlines of troughs and even upper level low pressure centers called vorticity maximums. These “vort maxes” can kick off convection or intensify a low pressure system. Skies may clear suddenly behind them. Knowing their position also allows us to compare the real world with a forecast model. If the model has forecasted it well,then confidence in the models forecast is increased!

Since the amount of radiation an object gives off is related to it’s temperature, the IR images also can tell us the height of clouds and thunderstorms! The colder the cloud, the higher it is! High ice crystal cirrus clouds show up bright white on IR images, where ground fog is sometimes hard to see since it’s the same temp. as the ground.

A new technique has been developed that subtracts one channel from another and makes it possible to see fog at night. We call it the “fog Product“. High clouds over a fog layer will usually keep it from dissipating as fast so seeing the different layers of clouds is very important.

Lines of building cumulus clouds can be seen long before radar echoes show up. Many times when the atmosphere is unstable, these building towers are the first clue that severe convection is imminent and a tornado watch may be issued.

Geostationary weather satellites are over Europe and Asia, along with the Middle East, So we can actually see every corner of the globe. Not the high latitudes though, we only get images of the poles a few times a day. Forecasters in these high latitudes get very good at interpreting the lower and higher resolution images from the polar orbiting satellites. If you have the money, you can download the images from these satellites as they pass overhead. Lots of people do it!

Temperature structure of the atmosphere near Huntsville AL. From GOES. Numbers on the right are indexes that tell the forecaster about instability etc.

There are other sensors on these satellites as well. If you crash in a remote island, your plane will have an ELT on it. This Emergency Locating Transmitter will be picked up by the GOES. Detection of solar storms is also made possible by GOES along with other satellites. Arctic Ice in shipping lanes is also monitored with GOES. If there were GOES in 1912, maybe the Titanic would have missed that berg.

Yes, it cost a lot of money to put these satellites up in space and even more to build them, however the images they provide are very nearly priceless.

The American Meteorological Society has thousands of members in all types of atmospheric disciplines. The smallest group is likely the broadcast Meteorologists. We have a little over 100 attendees here in Portland at the the 37th annual AMS Conference on Broadcast Meteorology. I know what you are thinking. A room full of 100 people with very good haircuts.

You might be surprised though. We come in all colours, shapes and sizes. I even have a slight green tint to my hair due to a hotel pool in Seaside Oregon. It’s a long story, and believe me, it was a real shock, considering I was three days away from presenting at a Climate Seminar that kicked off the conference!

Online remedies included white vinegar, and crushing a bunch of aspirin up, and mixing with shampoo. Mixed results, but it seems a bit better. Apparently this is a result of my attempt to hold off my rapidly greying hair with a grocery store product! I haven’t told my News Director about this yet, but someone at the station will read this and pass it on I suspect!

The conference has been quite good today. We had an update on the GOES satellite program. Almost all of the weather satellites you see on TV, or online are from the GOES. GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite.

They are at the same altitude as the satellites that are used for TV signals. At 35,780 km high they take exactly 23 hours, 56 minutes and 47 seconds to orbit the Earth. This is precisely how long it takes for the Earth to turn once on it’s axis. They therefore, hover over the same spot, and with infrared sensors, you can get satellite images of any spot in the USA, every 15 minutes. Around the clock. In rapid scan mode, every 7.5 minutes. (The more observant of you might be wondering why your clock takes exactly 24 hours to go around, not 23 hours 56 mins. and 47 secs.! You should!- Here is a hint: SUN)

A new GOES will be launched in a few days. GOES O will likely become Goes 14. They are given a letter before launch, but once operational, they are given a number. The current GOES satellite, that covers much of the Eastern 2/3rds of North America, is designated as GOES 12. GOES 13 is already in orbit, but in storage. This new GOES will not significantly improve our abilities to monitor the weather.

The big improvement will come with the GOES R series in 2015. The next generation of satellites will have higher resolution and sensors capable of “seeing” much more, in the non visible wavelengths. It will also be able to give a close to true colour look at the Earth. The reason you cannot get true colour now, is that there is no sensor for the green wavelengths. (True colour requires Red, Green and Blue) Money is the reason. Big cost for little gain according to what was said today by James Gurka, of NOAA NESDIS.

Perhaps the greatest advance will be the new GLM. That stands for Geostationary Lightning Mapping sensor. We will be able to see real time lightning data across the entire western hemisphere. Not just cloud to ground data like you see on TV during stormy weather now, but cloud to cloud, and in cloud lightning. (Yes that is what it’s really called, I am not simplifying names here!)

I am asked often about the lack of lightning warnings. We warn for severe storms and tornadoes, but why not for lightning?? It’s a good question and there is not one single answer. The gist of it though, is that we do not have enough data or knowledge to do a decent job of it. We should though, because lightning kills more people in the USA, in an average year, than hurricanes or tornadoes.

Portland sunset Monday night from my balcony. Click for full pic.

That is changing though, and by the end of the next decade, I think we will indeed have the ability. Frankly, we should have already had GOES R in orbit. The USA is falling behind Europe in remote sensing. Many grad students now go there to work on their research, because they have satellites with the newest technology up already.

A satellite built to gather information on climate crashed into the ocean recently. Who knows if a replacement will be built. Science has truly suffered in this country. I have written before about the war on science, the fact that GOES 14 will not go up for 6 years is at least partially a result.

These satellites cost each American a few pennies per day to operate, and it has been said that if they could see only hurricanes and nothing else, the cost would have been worth it, ten times over! They see much more though. I will do a post soon and show you just how much information is available in one satellite image!

G’nite from a cool and green Portland. Green, in more ways than one!

ps “colour” is correct with or without the u, and I like it with the u. So get over it!

Yes there really is such a thing and you can join too. I warn you, a membership card will mark your final descent into geek-dom. So clean the screen on your Mac, and dust off your entire collection of Doctor Who episodes, and accept the fact you’re a geek and be happy about it. I am!

There is actually some big news in the cloud world as of late. There is a new one! Not world, we still have the same one, and it’s ecosystem is in a very iffy state. What we do have is a new cloud type. Maybe.

The Royal Meteorological Society is working with the founder of the cloud appreciation society (CAP) to get it recognized officially by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) of the UN. I think they have a pretty good chance too. I myself have seen them and could not identify them either! They are very beautiful and memorable.

The working name is ASPERATUS. Latin for rough and they do indeed appear rough! You can see an example of the cloud on the image below. Click to go to the CAP website.

Asperatus? Is the cloud of the month at the Cloud App. Society. Image is hyperlinked.

Cloud types are not that hard to learn. Here is an easy way to do it.

4 main categories:
1. Low 2. Middle 3. High 4. Tall
Each of these categories can have flat clouds or puffy clouds. Flat clouds are status. Puffy are cumulus. Middle clouds have the prefix Alto. High cloud has the prefix Cirro. There is only one tall cloud, a cumulonimbus. Commonly called a thunderhead and it is indeed likely a thunderstorm, or about to be one! Sometimes you will see a low cloud that seems to be a bit of stratus and cumulus together. Call it stratocumulus and you will likely be right.

One last thing. If it’s producing rain, add the word NIMBUS. Nimbus means rain cloud. As in cumulonimbus!  So a puffy middle cloud is an alto-cumulus and a high thin flat cloud is a cirrostratus. (I pronounce it cirro stray tus.)

Flying Saucer Lenticularis- Click image for more at Sci. Ray.

My favourite type of cloud is a LENNY. Technically it’s an Alto-cumulus Standing Lenticularis. (ACSL). They sometimes look like flying saucers hovering over a mountain top. There was a great display around Mount Rainier recently. Lennies are caused by invisible waves in the atmosphere. As air rises and cools, at the top of the wave, it may condense and form a cloud. As it descends, the air warms, and the cloud disappears. The visible part of the cloud will tend to stand over one spot!

173232main_noctilucent_clouds_nasa-webv_1

The link here is a great time lapse of these clouds from NASA.

Noctilucent Clouds- from NASA See description. Click image for more.

There is actually another type of cloud. Very rare, and very high. So high, it’s in the Mesosphere between 45-80km high. At the edge of space itself.

Noctilucent clouds are seen usually in the polar regions after dark. They are so high, that they can be lit by the sun, after it’s totally night at the surface. NASA is studying them with the AIM satellite. Check out the movie. I think I have seen Noctilucent clouds once, but I cannot say for sure.

The Mesosphere is the least explored part of our atmosphere. It’s extremely difficult to get there! You can pass rapidly through it on the shuttle heading into orbit, but you are there only for seconds. Too high for balloons and planes!

Some recent research is indicating that an increase in the appearances of these clouds may be due to climate change. While the troposphere is warming, the layers of the atmosphere above it are predicted to be cooling. That very thing is happening.

Clouds are the great leveler. Rich or poor, we can all see them and there is no charge. Those who live in the haze free areas of the world away from air pollution are the luckiest, and your chance of seeing Noctilucent clouds is much higher in polar regions. Lennies are very rare outside of mountain regions, but I have spotted them even here in the Southeast in winter.

These Cirrus aren't Near us. Click for details from NASA JPL.

Earth does not have a lock on clouds, with Venus covered in clouds made of sulfuric acid. Jupiter has clouds made of methane and Saturn’s moons Titan is also covered in exotic clouds. There has even been speculation that life might exist in the Jovian clouds, at just the right pressures and temperatures.

Yes, Mars has cirrus clouds!  They are made of ice crystals and look just like our cirrus.

I love clouds so much, I frequently show pictures, that viewers send me, on my daily weathercasts.

So look up in wonder every now and then!

Later,
Dan

When I was young, if you were an Astronaut, you were famous. Everyone knew what you looked like. Not so anymore. The public fascination with space waned after the Moon landing and it has not recovered. These days, the only way an Astronaut gets famous, is if he dies or gets caught in a sordid love triangle. Astronauts are not household names anymore.

Some of the reasons for this may be the general lack of Science education in this country. Some have called it a war on Science. Based on some emails  I get from this journal, I tend to agree with them. It extends beyond climate change, and Biology to almost every facet of Earth Science. Some of the statements I hear political leaders make on Science, are stunningly ignorant of the very basics.

The Astronauts flying on the next Shuttle mission deserve some REAL public recognition. This mission is going to be one of the most difficult and dangerous missions ever attempted by NASA. The previous administrator of NASA (Sean O’Keefe) cancelled it for just that reason, but the public and (especially) the scientific community pushed hard for it to be flown. A new NASA Administrator put it back on the schedule. An article in SCIENCE this week suggests that it was his reluctance to approve the mission led to him being replaced.

I’ve had the privilege of talking with two Apollo Astronauts and even strapped into some simulators. (Zero G movement is easy, as long as you don’t care where you go. Try a task and it’s much more difficult than you can imagine). These Astronauts have trained very hard for these 5 days. The risk of death is about 2% for each Shuttle mission. Would you drive to work tomorrow if you had a 2% chance of dying? I wouldn’t.

They will.

NASA picture of the Hubble Telescope.

You probably know already the task ahead for these Astronauts. They are going to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. No telescope has done more to answer the fundamental questions of Physics since Galileo’s (Which is still working in Italy, but good luck getting to look through it!).

Two new cameras will be added along with fresh batteries and new gyroscopes. The new Wide Field Camera will be 10-30 times more sensitive than the previous one! If it all goes well, Hubble will be astoundingly better than before. It’s hoped that it will last until 2014.

It might still be working when the new James Webb telescope sees it’s first star light. The JWT will be the most advanced telescope ever made and will no doubt make profound discoveries. Testing for this telescope is going on only 9 miles away from where I sit writing this, at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

From NASA web.

This mission will use dozens of tools made especially for the mission. It will indeed be dangerous. Remember that satellite collision awhile back? Well some of that debris is orbiting at around 500km. Where Hubble is. When this flight launches, a rescue Shuttle will be on the pad at KSC, just in case. (Addition May 9th: Former Mission Control Scientist James Oberg wrote more about the rescue possibilities and orbital mechanics on MSNBC’s web site.

It will take multiple space walks to do the job, and NASA has collected the best and the brightest of the “Right Stuff” to do it. Two members of the crew have repaired Hubble before. It will be the last repair mission on Hubble. The Shuttle is about to be retired and when the computers and the gyros fail in about 5 years, Hubble will see no more light from across an unimaginable distance of Space and time.

Just 100 years ago, astronomers thought that the Universe and the Galaxy we inhabit, were one and the same. Those fuzzy spiral “nebula” visible in the best telescopes were thought to be relatively nearby. We really had no idea of just how far away they were and how big the galaxy was. It was Astronomer Edwin Hubble who figured out a way to measure the distance to these galaxies. He used a type of star called Cepheid Variable. He realized that these gave him what astronomers now call a standard candle.

In 1998 Hubble stared at what looked like an empty spot in the sky near the Big Dipper. The 10 day exposure showed millions of galaxies at distances too great to fathom.

Think of  it this way. Look at a street light in the far distance. You can tell if it’s near or far, because you know from experience how bright street lights are. If you had some good scientific equipment, you could measure the light from a nearby street light and assuming the distant one is about as bright, you could with some fairly simple math, get a very good estimate of the distance to the far one.

This is exactly what Edwin Hubble did! He found out that these so called nebula were galaxies like our own, but at incredible distances of 250 million light years, and even further. We have now made measurements of galaxies nearly 13 billion light years away. We can only see 13.5 billion light years, because the universe is that old. Light from farther away, could not have reached us yet! (See my previous post on this).

From NASA web site. Click image to go there.

Now we know that we truly are, a grain of sand, in a vast cosmos. There are, however, still fundamental questions to be answered. Most of the universe is invisible to we humans. It’s full of what Cosmologists call dark matter.

What is it?

NOBODY knows. The newly improved Hubble Telescope just might answer that question.

For 7 NASA Astronauts. That’s worth the 2%.

On behalf of Scientists, and Science lovers world wide.

THANK YOU.

Dr. John Anderson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has discovered something very weird. Two other colleagues have been working on it as well. As of now, there is no explanation. Safe to say it’s likely keeping them up at night!

Not that they haven’t tried to figure it out!

Sherlock Holmes said, that once you rule out the impossible, then what remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The truth, in this case is that the laws of gravity, might not be right.

Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972, and along with Pioneer 11, and the two Voyager spacecraft, is now speeding along well out of our solar system. We lost contact with Pioneer 11, but scientists were able to get some data back from Pioneer 10 in 2000. It was twice as far from the sun, as very distant Pluto. Well over 80 times, the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

This Earth-Sun distance is called an Astronomical Unit. Earth is therefore 1 AU from the sun. Pluto is about 40. Pioneer 10 is over 100AU. The last contact with it was in 2003. It’s now well over 24 light hours from Earth! (The sun is 8 light minutes!)

Pioneer 10 from NASA JPL

The problem here is that Pioneer 10 is not where it should be. It’s a bit behind schedule. Not a big deal, since it will not likely run into anything for awhile. The star Aldebaran (53 light years away) is expecting a visit….in about 1,700,000 years. Plenty of time to kick the cat out, and clean the rugs.

Paths of Pioneer 10/11 Ctsy: NASA JPL

Pioneer 10 is slowing down though. Something is pulling it back toward the sun. The magnitude of this acceleration is .00000008 cm/sec/sec.(8 x10 -8 cm/sec squared)  Yeah, not much, but when you have traveled over 13 billion kilometers, it adds up!

So what is causing it??

Well, they have ruled out all kind of things. Yes, they added in Einstein’s relativity. They checked the Atomic clocks, and a dozen other things.

They found that Pioneer 11 had the same problem, before radio contact was lost. They have even discovered the same affect, on a couple of other planetary space craft. (The Voyager spacecraft can’t be used, because they make too many position changes with their thrusters).

Could it be the heat given off by the nuclear power system. Nope, checked. How about the radio antenna? Every action gives an equal and opposite reaction, right. So sending those radio waves back to Earth at the speed of light will cause an acceleration, no? Yes, it certainly will!

Not that.

How about a mysterious planet X? Checked, nice try.

Dark matter! That’s it!

NO, they checked.

Gravity from the Galaxy?
No, but two points for thinking of it.

So what’s the answer?

They would really like to know. Could our understanding of the laws of Gravity be missing something? Perhaps. The affect is not seen in the orbits of planets, like Mars. It only seems to affect small space craft.

Someone is going to have to call Aldebaran, and let them know that Pioneer will be late. That’s going to be one heck of a roaming charge.

Later,
Dan

PS For the super nerds out there- go here.