Long Before Dinosaurs, a Giant Asteroid Crash Caused an Ancient Ice Age
About 466 million years ago, long before the age of the dinosaurs, the Earth froze. The seas began to ice over at the Earth’s poles,…
Meteorology News
2015 El Niño Appears Likely to Equal the Event of 1997-98
NASA scientists continue to monitor and study this year’s El Niño, which appears likely to equal the event of 1997-98 – the strongest El Niño…
NASA TV Will Broadcast Perseid Meteor Shower Program
NASA TV will host a program for this week’s Perseid meteor shower, which is expected to be one of the best in years. NASA’s Marshall…
New NASA/NOAA Animations Reveal Water Vapor Over Oceans
Scientists have used observations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites to create two new types of animations that indicate where…
Astronomers Prepare for a Fireball Display from the Perseid Meteor Shower
On the nights of August 12th and 13th, astronomers will have the opportunity to watch the Perseid meteor shower, a meteor shower that has recently…
Australian Heat Wave Causes Gadgets to Fail
The Australian heat wave is getting so hot that Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology had to add new colors to its weather map. There are parts…
The Inherent Unpredictability of El Nino Events
El Niño events are not as predictable as previously thought. According to new analyses of climate records locked within ancient corals, the frequency and strength…
Atmospheric River Observatories Allow Accurate Weather Prediction of Floods
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow conveyor belts of rainstorms that stream in from the Pacific Ocean. Meteorologists have been able to predict the storms five…
Commercial Network of Microsatellites Aims to Help Weather Prediction
Most orbiting satellites point down towards Earth, but the satellites of the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology look sideways. Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) look towards…
It’s Impossible to Stop the Seas From Rising Completely
Global sea levels have risen about seven inches in the past hundred years, and that pace is steadily accelerating thanks to climate change. This rise…
Hurricane Sandy Viewed From Space
Hurricane Sandy has been downgraded to a post-cyclone storm, and most of the devastating effects of the hurricane are past, but people in 22 states…
Meteor Smoke Detected in Noctilucent Clouds
First noticed in 1885, noctilucent clouds have left researchers with many unanswered questions and now that scientists working on NASA’s AIM mission have detected bits…
Laser Beams Used to Create Filament Paths Could Potentially Direct Lightning
Lasers beams have been used for the first time to trigger and divert lightning bolts. It was first postulated in the 1990s that lasers could…
Friction on Raindrops Dissipates Almost as Much Atmospheric Energy as Turbulence
A new study published in the journal Science states that rainfall soothes the atmosphere, almost as much as turbulence. They calculated that a substantial portion…