• How cloud super-engines shift hurricanes into overdrive.
    ID: 3773 Visualization

    Towers In The Tempest

    July 28, 2010

    Massive accumulations of heat pulled from the top layers of tropical ocean water and set spinning due to planetary rotation form a hurricane's spiraling vortex. But powering the inside of these storms we find one of nature's most astounding natural engines: hot towers. Scientists discovered hot towers in recent years by observing storms from space and creating advanced supercomputer models to decipher how a hurricane sustains its winding movement. The models show that when air spirals inward toward the eye of a hurricane it collides with an unstable region of air at the eyewall, where the strongest winds are found, and suddenly deflects upwards. This rush of warm, moist air is accelerated by surrounding patches of convective clouds, called hot towers, which strengthen and propel the hurricane by keeping the vertical ring of clouds in motion. Watch the first video below as NASA researchers look under the hood of these cloud super-engines to reveal exciting findings about a hurricane's internal motor. ||

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  • Their names are a mouthful, but the global perspective satellites provide has revolutionized our view of the Earth.
    ID: 3792 Visualization

    Meet NASA's Earth-Observing Fleet

    October 28, 2010

    TRMM. Landsat 7. Terra. ACRIMSAT. EO-1. Jason 1. GRACE (twice). Aqua. ICESat. SORCE. Aura. CloudSat. CALIPSO. Jason 2. And, as of June 2011, Aquarius. None of the acronym-heavy Earth-observing satellites seen in the visualization below have achieved the name recognition of big-ticket NASA missions like Apollo or Hubble. But unmanned probes are quietly beaming down information that has transformed our understanding of how the Earth works and what we know of the human fingerprint on climate. Together they represent a mission to planet Earth as ambitious as any NASA has made to the Moon or Mars. One of the oldest functioning satellites in the fleet, TRMM, monitors precipitation; the newest, Aquarius, measures the salinity of the ocean. The next to launch in October 2011—NPP—will continue a suite of atmospheric, ocean, and land surface records initiated decades ago. The visualization shows the precise orbit tracks of twenty current and former Earth-observing satellites (not including Aquarius), as well as the International Space Station and Hubble. ||

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  • The fine-grained resolution of NASA's most powerful climate model sharpens our understanding of Earth.
    ID: 3793 Visualization

    Artificial World Captures Reality

    October 28, 2010

    A gold standard for supercomputer models that simulate Earth is the ability to recreate real events—snowstorms, tropical cyclones, long-term climate trends. By that benchmark, this 20-day run of one of the highest-resolution climate models in the world glitters. Called GEOS-5, the model was given data leading up to Feb. 2, 2010 and then predicted the atmosphere's response until Feb. 22, 2010 without any further input. The model simulated real weather events that took place during this period—two major snowstorms that struck the East Coast and a Pacific cyclone that formed out of intense convection in the tropics. A closer look at the simulation below reveals its complexity: 3-D cloud layers, the day-night cycle of humidity appearing and disappearing over the Amazon and streaky "cloud streets" that trail across the Atlantic from the U.S. coastline. ||

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  • ID: 3842 Visualization

    Carbon Catch And Release

    June 24, 2011

    Through tiny, microscopic pores called stomata, plants absorb one hundred billion tons of carbon from the air each year and convert about half of that into organic matter—leaves, roots, tree branches, grass. As we continue to increase the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, knowing exactly how much carbon Earth's plants absorb from the air—Gross Primary Productivity (GPP)—will become only more important. NASA has closely measured this since 2000, and that volume of absorption is seen in the first visualization below as waves of green. The northern hemisphere all the way up to the Arctic Circle swells with life each summer, before much of the vegetation wilts and exhales its carbon in fall and winter. Meanwhile, forests such as the Amazon, a robust green throughout, show off their amazing productivity despite seasonal changes. ||

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  • A tiny particle created by both backcountry burning and heavy industry has an outsized effect on Earth's climate.
    ID: 3844 Visualization

    Black Carbon: A Global Presence

    August 9, 2011

    When wood, fossil fuels, and even dried dung burns at low temperatures, countless bits of carbonaceous material waft into the atmosphere as smoke. These charred bits of matter— known as soot—usually remain aloft for just a short period, but they have a major impact on humans nonetheless. The chain-like particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and contribute to asthma and cardiovascular disease. They also impact the climate. In fact, soot has such a powerful ability to absorb sunlight that climatologists call it "black carbon" and the ubiquitous particles are thought to be the second strongest contributor to global warming following only carbon dioxide. The data visualization above, based on data from NASA's GOCART model, simulates the atmospheric concentration of black carbon between August and November of 2009. This story is the first of a two-part series on black carbon, which will conclude on Thursday with a look at how the particles affect the Himalayan region. ||

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  • A new map changes our understanding of how ice flows across Antarctica.
    ID: 3849 Visualization

    Antarctic Ice Flow Charted From Space

    August 25, 2011

    Harsh snows have blanketed Antarctica for so long that the continent has built up an ice sheet a mile thick from bedrock to surface in most places. Despite the ice cap's grip on the rocky landmass below, friction can only hold back the ice so much. A new, first-of-its-kind map from NASA reveals icy Antarctica as a landscape of constant movement. NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and UC Irvine have charted this movement for the first time, using Canadian, Japanese and European satellite data to create a record of the speed and direction of ice flow across the entire continent. The map reveals glaciers and tributaries in patterned flows stretching hundreds of miles inland, like a system of rivers and creeks. Slow-moving flows found in largely unexplored East Antarctica defied previous understanding of ice migration. And scientists discovered a ridge that splits Antarctica from east to west. Explore the visualizations below to see the new benchmark map scientists can use to study the extent and speed of changes to the largest ice sheet in the world. ||

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  • Satellite observations show where plants thrive—or struggle to survive—on land and sea.
    ID: 10704 Produced Video

    Marine Deserts On The Move

    January 27, 2011

    The Sahara. The Gobi. The Mojave. Viewed from space, the dearth of vegetation in deserts paint vast swaths of tan on continents otherwise alive with green. The mesmerizing seasonal ebb and flow of vegetation dancing over the land and sea surface is the most noticeable feature of the first visualization below, which shows a full ten-year span of data from a NASA satellite instrument called the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS). More surprising is what SeaWiFS reveals about plant life in the oceans. Vast oceanic "deserts," seen here as dark blue and purple, stretch across large portions of the tropics in all major ocean basins. Here, nutrient-starved, warm waters make it nearly impossible for phytoplankton to survive. More than a decade of SeaWiFS data shows these biological deserts are growing at a rapid rate. Meanwhile, productive areas of the ocean (light green and yellow in the animation) have shrunk by between 1 and 4 percent each year for the last decade. Scientists suspect climate change is the culprit, but they need longer-term satellite records to rule out natural variations. ||

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  • A region's brawny economy leaves a pall of black carbon over the Indo-Gangetic plain.
    ID: 10714 Produced Video

    Black Carbon: Asia's Plain Of Air Pollution

    August 11, 2011

    The Himalayan Plateau, a towering mass of rock on the northern edge of the Indian subcontinent, rises sharply over one of the most fertile and populous tracts of land in the world, the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Nearly a billion people crowd that plain, an area about the size of Texas. The region's explosive population growth and strong economy in recent decades have produced an unwelcome byproduct—air pollution. Burning fossil fuels, wood, vegetation and dung sends a steady stream of soot (or, black carbon, as scientists call the light-absorbing particles) aloft. Studies show India's black carbon emissions have jumped about 60 percent per decade in the last two decades. The short-lived particles typically remain in the atmosphere for less than a week, but they pool over the Indo-Gangetic plain as monsoon-fueled winds trap them along the Himalayas. The particles, the most health-sapping part of air pollution, also have a potent climate impact. Unlike most other types of particulate, black carbon absorbs radiation, warming the atmosphere and contributing to the retreat of glaciers in the area. The visualization below, based on three months of data generated by NASA's GOCART model, shows black carbon circulating throughout the region, held largely at bay by the mountain range. ||

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  • Las Vegas is all in, but how long until its water runs out?
    ID: 10715 Produced Video

    Tapped Dry In Vegas

    August 18, 2011

    The constant influx of residents to Las Vegas since the 1970s has made it one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the world. Currently more than 2 million people live in the 600-square-mile desert region, centered around the world-famous Las Vegas Strip and its luxury resorts and casinos. No doubt, the steady commercial and residential development over the last 40 years has been a boon to the valley's economy, but dense urbanization has exacted a high price on its most vital natural resource: water. Abundant parks, golf courses and manicured landscapes in Las Vegas' arid climate require more water to maintain than they naturally receive. This has placed an unsustainable demand on the region's primary water supply—Lake Mead—where water levels have fallen in the past decade due to persistent drought experienced across the Southwest. Scientists predict drought frequency and intensity for the region will only increase as global temperatures rise. In the collection of false-color, time-lapse images below captured by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites, witness Las Vegas' explosive growth from 1972 to 2010. ||

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  • Polar scientists will return to Antarctica in fall 2011 to monitor one of the world's fastest moving glaciers.
    ID: 10723 Produced Video

    Base Camp: West Antarctica

    February 14, 2011

    Stretching off the edge of the continent, 1,400 miles west of Antarctica's McMurdo Station, is Pine Island Glacier (PIG)—a massive river of ice 190 miles wide and 30 miles long that satellite measurements reveal is rapidly shrinking in size. Much of the glacier rests on a bed below sea level and global sea levels could increase by three feet or more if the glacier melted completely. The rate of ice loss on the glacier has increased rapidly in recent years, and scientists believe shifting warm water rising from the adjacent deep ocean and circulating in the surrounding Amundsen Sea are rapidly melting the underside of the glacier's floating edge—the ice shelf. To be certain requires measurements taken beneath this floating ice. That's where NASA polar scientist Robert Bindschadler comes in. In 2008, Bindschadler led an expedition to the remote ice shelf by plane, but the dangers of landing on the crevassed surface prevented his team from collecting data. This fall Bindschadler will return via helicopter. The plan on arrival: drill 1,640 feet below the surface and deploy a specially designed instrument that will start continuous measurements of the shifting ocean waters beneath the glacier. ||

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