Clipmarks | jetcloud's 'clouds' clips

WTKR weather: Clear skies ahead

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:17:27 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Meteorologists rely on all kinds of equipment to forecast the weather, from radar and satellites to billion-dollar super computers.

But on days like today, a DC-9 flying overhead can give you a pretty good forecast. Just watch the jet contrails!

We're expecting clear, blue skies today. Chances are the contrails will fade very quickly. That means the upper atmosphere is pretty dry and there aren't any storm systems trying to move our way.

But by tomorrow afternoon, those contrails should start to stick around longer and even thicken up a bit. That means some humid air is pushing in to the region and we can expect some storms this weekend. We'll see how our contrail forecasting holds up.

With those blue skies today, expect high temperatures in the lower 70s.

Expect clear skies tonight with low temperatures in the low-to-mid 50s.

Warmer weather returns tomorrow. Expect plenty of sunshine with high temperatures in the low-to-mid 80s on Friday.

Current weather

Tags: contrails, weather, clouds, climate change

Effects of contrails and ship tracks on climate

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:44:14 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: http://jc.stumbleupon.com/

Clip Source: jc.stumbleupon.com

The track of large ships is sometimes visualised by a trail of shallow stratus clouds. These clouds, known as 'ship tracks', form in the wake of ships and are remarkably long-lived (Fig 1). They typically are between 0.5-5 km wide, i.e. wide enough to be seen in visible satellite imagery. Sometimes a ship track appears as a band of enhanced cloud thickness embedded in stratus. Ship tracks are due to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the ship's exhaust (4). They are most likely in a near-saturated environment that is otherwise depleted of CCN. Such environment is very common in the marine boundary layer over the subtropical highs. Over these large, quasi-stationary highs, the boundary-layer air is divergent, making it unlikely to draw in CCN-rich continental air.

The nature and climatic effect of ship tracks was investigated in a field campaign labeled MAST (Monterey Area ShipTrack), which was conducted during June 1994 off the central California coast.

Tags: ship tracks, contrails

Jet traffic affecting climate

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:31:05 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "I remember walking to and from my office [during that time] and thinking how incredibly clear the skies were," recalls Carleton. He mentioned this to a colleague and former Ph.D. student of his, David Travis of the University of Wisconsin, who had noticed the same thing. "Then we started thinking that we should look at the temperature conditions" during those days in September and compare them to years past, Carleton says.

Looking at daytime highs and nighttime lows, Carleton and Travis found the average daily temperature range across the no-fly period to be almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit larger than when jets do fly. This implies, Carleton explains, that contrails lower daytime maximum temperatures and increase nighttime low temperatures—probably in the same way that cirrus clouds do, by blocking some solar radiation from reaching earth's surface during the day, and insulating against heat loss at night.

Since finding this association, Carleton has used contrails as a sort of metr

Clip Source: www.rps.psu.edu

Young (narrow) contrails as well as older ones expand laterally across the sky. Photo by David Travis

Is this atmospheric graffiti a problem? Research by Penn State geography professor Andrew Carleton suggests it could be. Contrails "can extend the natural cirrus cover," Carleton explains, and unlike most clouds, cirrus tend to warm the surface overall because they trap heat more than they reflect the Sun's radiation. "This is a concern to climate scientists because it could mean that a lot more contrails would make global warming worse."

Although scientists had suspected that contrails affect regional temperatures, there was no way to truly test the idea until the tragic attacks on September 11, 2001. In the enforced no-fly period following the collapse of the World Trade Center, air traffic was completely stopped for three days and scientists were able to directly compare temperatures logged in the presence of contrails against temperature data collected with contrail-free skies.

Tags: aircraft, contrails, climate change, global warming

Satellite Applications and Research (STAR)

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:46:00 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "STAR supports NESDIS and NOAA in their mission to assess current conditions and predict future changes on the Earth, and to understand long-term changes in the environment."

Clip Source: www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov

The Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) is the science arm of the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS), which acquires and manages the nation's operational Earth-observing satellites. NESDIS provides data from these satellites, and conducts research to make that possible.

To transfer satellite observations of the land, atmosphere, ocean, and climate from scientific research and development into routine operations, and to offer state-of-the-art data, products and services to decision-makers.

The United States invests billions of dollars every year in satellites and data, in order to monitor the ever-changing environment of Earth. The Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) uses the data from satellites to offer sound information about the Earth.

STAR is the science arm of the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS), which acquires and manages the nation's Earth-observing satellites.

Tags: star, climate change, clouds, cloud-watching, contrails, global warming

Engineer's work may reduce jet travel's role in global warming

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:55:54 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: Backed by government and industry grants, Dryer is leading two new research efforts to advance these technologies. The first, a major project funded by the U.S. Air Force, is focused on developing computational and kinetic models that accurately simulate the burning of jet fuel, a complex and poorly characterized mix of chemicals.

Clip Source: www.princeton.edu

Dryer and his MURI collaborators, including Princeton Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Yiguang Ju, will develop methods to predict and evaluate how jet fuels will behave in actual engines and characterize the emissions they will produce. While current guidelines specify some overall properties of jet fuels, they do not spell out the actual chemical composition. Depending on the source and processing method, jet fuel typically consists of hundreds to thousands of molecular structures that behave in a variety of ways.

The models developed by the team will represent and characterize the behavior of this broad range of jet fuel species using only a few types of molecular structures as surrogates for the larger whole. Dryer previously developed similar "surrogate fuel" models to represent gasoline, which are now being used for engine design by the automotive industry.

"The composition of fuels changes with the geographic source

the refining process

the season,"

Tags: aircraft, climate change, clouds, contrails, global warming, jetcloud, military, weather modification, worldwide

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:29:43 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: gristmill.grist.org

Below is a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by:

Stages of Denial,
Scientific Topics,
Types of Argument, and
Levels of Sophistication.

Individual articles will appear under multiple headings and may even appear in multiple subcategories in the same heading.

Tags: climate change, clouds, global warming

conspiracy video - chemtrails- contrails

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 01:34:39 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: vid + tunes , may be offensive

Clip Source: forums.randi.org

[Video]

YouTube Video

Tags: aircraft, clouds, climate change, contrails, jetcloud, smoke trail, weather modification

Contrails or Chemtrails?

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:36:15 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: Looks just like my sky on the west coast. Contrails (Chemtrails?) are the only cloud I see here now - so we really need them. No cloud - no life. And how is your sky?

Clip Source: salonesoterica.wordpress.com

Introduction
If you are unfamiliar with the subject of chemtrails, you should first read this general overview of the chemtrail spraying operations which began in earnest in late 1997. Without first reading the introductory overview, it’s difficult to understand the later informaiton that is being presented here. There are several key points to understand about the chemtrail spraying program.

Most people discover the reality of chemtrails by initially reading about it on the Internet and then going outside and looking up into the sky. They are shocked to realize that what they had been reading about (and studying photographs of) is also taking place right over their heads.

propaganda web sites trying to convince you that ‘everything is well’ and ‘there’s nothing to be alarmed about’ and that unaccountable ‘jet plane exhaust’ plumes are magically being converted into horizon-to-horizon overcasts of “cirrus clouds” !

Clip Source: salonesoterica.wordpress.com

The Chemicals Being Sprayed in Our Skies and Down to Your Lungs Daily

Tags: aircraft, climate change, global warming, clouds, contrails, jetcloud, weather modification

Gaia scientist says pipe dream may fix climate

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:47:55 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Pipes to mix deep and surface water. While they focus on the generation of algal bloom, there would also be dramatic changes in temperature, currents and ecosystems of which the algae are a part. The effects may be less of a problem than the one being solved, but by humanity's history of bugged patches, a few more of the ramifications should be considered. Richard Branson, has offered to make a prototype which may give more detail into possible benefits and dangers.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Ben Hirschler

A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the earth's damaged climate system, says the scientist behind the Gaia hypothesis.

Installing pipes in our oceans is the latest proposal to halt climate change. But not everyone's convinced this way of mixing surface and deeper water will help

Professor James Lovelock, whose hypothesis says earth is a kind of superorganism composed of living and non-living elements, has fuelled controversy for three decades.

He thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried to fix our climate, even if they ultimately fail.

In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 metres long and 10 metres wide be placed in the sea, so that wave motion pumps up water and fertilises algae on the surface.

This algal bloom would push down carbon dioxide levels and also produce dimethyl sulfide, helping to seed sunlight-reflecting clouds.

Tags: science, gaia, pipes, algal bloom, carbon dioxide, ocean

The Contrail Effect

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:06:59 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

Are vapor trails from aircraft influencing the climate, and if so, should we worry?

Contrails, the man-made clouds left in the wake of jet aircraft, may actually alter climate, though to what degree remains unclear.

The sheer number of contrails generated on a typical day in busy air corridors can come as a shock. A NASA satellite took this enhanced infrared image of the southeastern U.S. on January 29, 2004.

In skies normally crosshatched with condensation trails, the only contrails seen in this image from September 12, 2001, were left by the plane returning President Bush to Washington from Nebraska and several escort fighters.

In this true-color satellite image shot above northwestern Europe, the contrast between skies with contrails and those without offers a striking sense of the influence these pseudo clouds might have on regional climate.

The Contrail Effect
Are vapor trails from aircraft influencing the climate?

Discoveries in
Global Dimming

Tags: climate, climate change, global warming, contrails

Impure as the Driven Snow

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:15:14 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Smut is a bigger problem than greenhouse gases in polar meltdown

Belching from smokestacks, tailpipes and even forest fires, soot—or black carbon—can quickly sully any snow on which it happens to land. In the atmosphere, such aerosols can significantly cool the planet by scattering incoming radiation or helping form clouds that deflect incoming light. But on snow—even at concentrations below five parts per billion—such dark carbon triggers melting, and may be responsible for as much as 94 percent of Arctic warming.

"Impurities cause the snow to darken and absorb more sunlight," says Charlie Zender, a climate physicist at the University of California, Irvine. "A surprisingly large temperature response is caused by a surprisingly small amount of impurities in snow in polar regions."

Tags: climate change