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NASA Snaps Mysterious "Night-Shining" Clouds
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Dec 10, 2007 05:27 PM
from the pretty-pictures dept.
from the pretty-pictures dept.
coondoggie writes to tell us that NASA has captured some pretty impressive images of the Alluring noctilucent (or "night-shining") clouds. These clouds are made up of ice crystals and dust and are formed at high altitudes near the poles. "Very little is known about how these clouds form over the poles, why they are being seen more frequently and at lower latitudes than ever before, or why they have been growing brighter. AIM will observe two complete cloud seasons over both poles, documenting an entire life cycle of the shiny clouds for the first time. 'It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means,' stated AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University, Hampton, Va. 'These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed.'"
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"steamed hams"? (Score:5, Funny)
At this time of day? localized entirely in your kitchen?
Off topic? Dumb mods (Score:2, Informative)
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Parent still made me grin though =D
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
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No, that's Al Gore's job. Now you're going to have to take away his Nobel prize and give to the clouds. :)
Re:"steamed hams"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I understand that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but do we really need to wait until the house burns to the ground before we'll agree that the bitch is on fire? Isn't the smoke rising through the floorboards enough? It's amazing the number the oil companies and the right-wing media have done on us. Every other developed country in the world is at least sitting down and agreeing to try to minimize carbon emissions except the US. And we act all shocked and hurt when the rest of the world thinks we're total assholes.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The american problem is that they are governed by people who have a personnal interest in keeping their country in a high oil dependance.
Heh... (Score:5, Insightful)
That may well be entirely true, but I recognize a cousin to the "...and therefore may lead to new treatments for cancer." that molecular biologists ritualistically slap at the end of every grant application.
It's all about knowing how to get the dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Same shit with terrorism in other areas. Can't get money for an anti-crime initiative? Just make it an anti-terror initiative! You get money t
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe the cloud is part of a positive feedback cycle that keeps the Earth's climate in acceptable ranges. Probably not, but since we're all jumping to conclusions here...
Re:Heh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Heh... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, Global Warming is passe, try Global Climate Change. That's a better term for your crowd because when it snows in April you can relate it to Global Climate Change. It has the added benefit of being completely true since no one is going to argue for Global Climate Stasis.
Second, science is about confirming links, obvious (to you) or not. Not that this study is going to actual confirm anything. Studying something for 2 years will not allow them or you or anyone to draw any conclusions about whether Global Climate Change is the cause.
Third, the conclusion that this is a new phenomenon is on shaky ground. Same can be said for the ozone hole. A better label would be a phenomenon we've never noticed before. I'm sure one of Newton's contemporaries probably labeled gravity as a new phenomenon, as if everyone was floating around in zero G before the apple fell on Wayne's head.
Parent
Re:Heh... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Climate Crisis" interpretation is that, due to the sudden rise of atmospheric carbon, we're in danger of not just a few degrees of warmth or sea level jumping a hundred feet, but a cascading series of feedback loops that will render Earth wholly uninhabitable.
We know the temperature is going up. We know that carbon in the air is going up. We know that we're tossing an awful lot of carbon into the air We can see a clear correlation between temperature and carbon going back a few thousand years.
Don't YOU think that's enough to, I don't know, stop tossing carbon into the air and see what happens? If it turns out to do nothing, we can just let you burn dinosaurs again. I know I'd rather lose my next paycheck than die.
Parent
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, that makes the flawed assumption that the earth's climate behaviors linearly and predictibly. It doesn't and therefor, it can't. There's nothing about our climate that guarantees that we should be in any steady state, and geologically speaking, the earth's climate has bounced all over the place. Sure, you might argue that there is some asthetic utility to balancin
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Best quote ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
We hear too often from these climate "experts", finally someone is ready to admit that our climate is so big and complex that we don't know exactly how it all works.
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Re:Best quote ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's one thing I learned during my Atmospheric Physics course at university, it's that we only have somewhat good ideas, or decent approximations of how some of these things work in the best case, and vague approximations or no fricking clue in the worst cases.
This is why it bothers me so much when people talk about global climate change as if they know what is going to happen. Is it happening? Yeah! Is it probably not good? Yeah! Do we even know enough to be crying end of the world? No!
Parent
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Re:Best quote ever! (Score:5, Interesting)
Atmospheric Science heavily relies upon taking what little data we *do* know, and extrapolating as much useful information as we possibly can out of it.
And it actually works pretty well... "anomalies" that have turned up in forecast models very often turn out to actually exist in reality. It was this way that we determined that a considerable amount of ash and pollution produced by industrial activity in Asia gets blown all the way to North America. It was so counterintuitive that nobody had ever thought to test for it before the forecast model suggested that it was happening quite readily.
If you also want to see something really scary, read up on the CFC Ozone depleting reaction. If it weren't for a few seasonal processes that restore the Ozone, and more importantly, wash out the CFCs, we'd have burned off our entire atmosphere in just a few years.
Parent
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Will we ever know enough before it's too late? Probably not! Can we do some good things now to give us more time to learn what's going on? Not if everyone has your attitude...
If you continue to analyze until you completely understand everything, the time for effective action is probably long past.
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Re:Best quote ever! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
These clouds are a clear symptom of global warming (Score:5, Funny)
Re:These clouds are a clear symptom of global warm (Score:2)
We already know that Dihydrogen Monoxide has a large green house properties and is probably more prevalent in the atmosphere then Co2. It just makes sense to ban it.
Re:These clouds are a clear symptom of global warm (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, the electrolyte imbalance caused by consuming too much DHMO can kill you [wikipedia.org], too.
Parent
More pictures (Score:5, Informative)
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Man, I love Science.
And I immediately think... (Score:5, Funny)
"All right, Beatrice, there was no alien. The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."
Visible in Ohio. (Score:5, Interesting)
Razzmataz? (Score:2)
and there were singers of stars in the pond...
Maybe they will increase the budged by offering their version of "Name Your Star" for the low, low price of... $350
These Clouds are Filamentary (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.spaceweather.com/nlcs/gallery2007_page9.htm [spaceweather.com]
Nearly every single cloud structure is filamentary. People will surely say it's blasphemous to use the E-word, but structures like these
http://www.spaceweather.com/nlcs/images2007/16jun07/Heden1.jpg [spaceweather.com]
Are what you get in the laboratory with *electrical* plasmas. It's the same structure that you get in a novelty plasma globe. These look exactly like Birkeland Currents to me. I'm not even sure that "clouds" is the proper term for these things, given their proximity to space. Even the overhead view from the article in question demonstrates filamentation.
Re:These Clouds are Filamentary (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Relax, guys! (Score:3, Funny)
Climate Science Manipulation Alleged [guardian.co.uk]
Obviously, this report didn't get properly vetted. By the end of the day it should be titled "Unday Clouds Shine Pretty! Doubleplus Good!"
they are coordinating from behind the moon (Score:4, Funny)
checkmate
One theory: X-rays (Score:5, Informative)
I found an article that is short and readable explaining the link between solar cycles and X-rays: http://solar.physics.montana.edu/nuggets/2000/000407/000407.html [montana.edu]. Note that the X-ray activity can vary hugely from the current solar minimum to, say, the 2000-2001 solar max.
The problem is that we don't have that much data on it yet. We need to accumulate several cycles worth of observations before we can answer these questions:
* When does the sun emit X-rays? Is it linked to sun spots?
* What do solar X-rays do to the upper atmosphere?
The X-rays are absorbed by the ionosphere (fortunately for life forms), and this energy transfer is not well known. During each solar minimum, less X-rays arrive in the upper atmosphere, which therefore should cool down. Is it the reason why we see these noctilucent clouds? If so, they should start disappearing in a couple of years, when sun spots return.
This is a very interesting keyhole on a yet unknown mechanism. I hope we'll see updates on the subject.
Clouds (Score:3, Funny)
A leading researcher commented as follows:
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all
Interpreting the data to fit with the times (Score:4, Insightful)
"These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed."
* It could also suggest that documentation has been poor in the past (ref. quote 1) and that the higher rate is because more effort is spent on registering the climate in general.
* It could also suggest a _purely local_ non-human-related change. After all, the middle ages warm period has been discounted by climatologists as a purely half-a-hemisphere local phenomenon. There is hence no reason why the climate should not change in one region of the world alone.
* It could also suggest a _purely local_ human-related change, e.g. if it is related to soot in the atmosphere, or NOx
* It could also suggest a _cyclical_ event, either globally or locally, which the expressions used ('is being changed') alludes away from.
Simply saying "The observations could suggest that XYZ" is an unprofessional statement. All observations could suggest a large number of things - so if it is just a suggestion and you are a professional, do not make a statement on it, while if it is very likely to be, then say that it is likely instead.
They're beautiful... and very high (Score:3, Informative)
I've seen these several times over the North Atlantic in the summer.
If you're not paying attention, your first impression is that they look like cirrus clouds viewed from the ground, only much more beautiful.
It's when you remember that you're already 30+ thousand feet up, and that these look like cirrus do when you're on the ground, that you realize how high they are. (That's plain English for 'mesosphere.')
Like satellites, you can see them when your sky is dark but they are catching sunlight due to their altitude.
Right up there with northern lights as a visual treat.
Re:While little is known about these clouds... (Score:4, Interesting)
Something that has simply amazed me for a long time now is Freezing Fog. Maybe understanding that could lead to a better understanding of these clouds and your conclusion of global warming.
Parent
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Homostasis (Score:2)
You see, a low cloud blocks some sunlight coming in, but also blocks infrared going out. A very high cloud, however, blocks the same amount of sunlight ( not being significantly closer to the sun ) and blocks less infrared because only inrared going straight up will hit it. This works unless there is nearly 100% cloud cover.
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First Global Warming...
Then NASA finding mysterious glowing lights over the North pole...
Now the BBC reports finding an ancient polar bear's jawbone on Svalbard [bbc.co.uk]...
Is there a very subtle marketing campaign going on, or should God not be starting any long books?
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Uh . . . did we read the same article? (Score:2)
Clearly, you are the one who is jumping to conclusions without examining the evidence.
Enjoy your nap. Maybe you'll be a bit less cranky when you wake up.
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