Tuesday, October 25th, 2022
Ship tracks, the polluted marine clouds that trail ocean-crossing vessels, are a signature of modern trade. Like ghostly fingerprints, they trace shipping lanes around the globe, from the North Pacific to the Mediterranean Sea. But in 2020, satellite observations showed fewer of those pollution fingerprints. Drawing on nearly two decades of satellite imagery, researchers found
Monday, October 10th, 2022
Two recently launched instruments designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to provide forecasters data on weather over the open ocean captured images of Hurricane Ian on Sept. 27, 2022, as the storm approached Cuba on its way north toward the U.S. mainland. COWVR (Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer) and TEMPEST
Friday, September 23rd, 2022
If global warming persists, blue lakes worldwide are at risk of turning green-brown, according to a new study which presents the first global inventory of lake color. Shifts in lake water color can indicate a loss of ecosystem health. While substances such as algae and sediments can affect the color of lakes, the new study
Monday, September 12th, 2022
In early September 2022, a long-lasting heat dome settled over the U.S. West and brought scorching temperatures that set all-time record highs. The extreme heat fueled wildfires and stressed the power grid before an eastern Pacific tropical storm moved into the region and broke the warm spell. On Sept. 7, 2022, more than 61 million
Friday, August 26th, 2022
The second-largest reservoir in the United States now stands at its lowest level since it was filled in the mid-1960s. The view from above is sobering. Lake Powell, a key component of the western U.S. water system, is currently filled to just 26 percent of capacity, its lowest point since 1967. On August 22, 2022,
Friday, August 12th, 2022
New research on Antarctica, including the first map of iceberg calving, doubles the previous estimates of loss from ice shelves and details how the continent is changing. The greatest uncertainty in forecasting global sea-level rise is how Antarctica’s ice loss will accelerate as the climate warms. Two studies published Aug. 10, 2022, and led by
Monday, August 1st, 2022
Water is life, but for all its importance, humanity has a surprisingly limited view of Earth’s freshwater bodies. Researchers have reliable water-level measurements for only a few thousand lakes around the world, and little to no data on some of the planet’s important river systems. The upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite will
Monday, July 18th, 2022
With the 2022 hurricane season upon us, the importance of using science-backed solutions for hurricane preparedness is brought to the foreground. Since Colombia’s Caribbean islands were devastated by hurricanes Eta and Iota within a two-week period back in November 2020, government-funded researchers have been using wave and current data measured by Nortek’s ocean sensors to
Friday, July 1st, 2022
A very small instrument has a big job ahead of it: measuring all Earth-directed energy coming from the Sun and helping scientists understand how that energy influences our planet’s severe weather, climate change and other global forces. About the size of a shoebox or gaming console, the Compact Total Irradiance Monitor (CTIM) is the smallest
Monday, June 20th, 2022
Greenland’s fjords harbor a unique group of polar bears that rely on glacial ice, a NASA-funded study reports in Science. Polar bears throughout the Arctic depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals. As human-caused climate change warms the planet and Arctic sea ice melts away, polar bears are scrambling to find ice
