20825520
submission
radioweather writes:
A government issued report from the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sounds the alarm about the incredible impacts of climate change upon UK: Wi-Fi signal range and strength will be greatly affected because of warmer temperatures.
According to an interview in the UK Guardian
"If climate change threatens the quality of your signal, or you can't get it because of extreme fluctuations in temperature, then you will be disadvantaged, which is why we must address the question," said Caroline Spelman of DEFRA, author of the report.
Let that be a reminder to you, never take your laptop outside on the patio where it is warmer, it could be bad.
19219612
submission
radioweather writes:
The heart of the sun came alive the evening of Valentines day. For the first time since solar cycle 24 began, the sun produced a massive X-class solar flare, the strongest type of flare event. This comes from sunspot group 1158, which produced an M-class solar flare on Sunday.
The EVE X-ray imager on the solar dynamics observatory shows a bright explosion on the sun, so bright it made a lens flare.
The last X-class solar flare was on December 13th, 2006 and was part of solar cycle 23. Look for spectacular auroras in about 2 days as the slower Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) hits earth. This will be a test of how well our newest technology handles stray energy from such solar disruptions.
18541480
submission
radioweather writes:
Scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter from thunderstorms in the form of positrons hurled into space. Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. "These signals are the first direct evidence that thunderstorms make antimatter particle beams," said Michael Briggs, a member of Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) team. He presented the findings at a news briefing at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. As the late, great, Johnny Carson of the Tonight Show used to say, “That is some weird, wild, stuff“.
18222876
submission
radioweather writes:
While we are well along into solar cycle 24, there remains a significant gap between the predictions of where we should be, and where we actually are in the progression of solar cycle 24. Recently, the sun went spotless again, and the solar Ap geomagnetic index, an indicator of the solar magneto,hit zero. It is something you really don't expect to see this far along into the cycle. In other solar news, scientists monitoring the SORCE solar satellite have found that solar ultraviolet emissions have dropped significantly in the past few years. The Solar Irradiance Monitor (SIM) on the satellite "suggests that ultraviolet irradiance fell far more than expected between 2004 and 2007 — by ten times as much as the total irradiance did — while irradiance in certain visible and infrared wavelengths surprisingly increased, even as solar activity wound down overall."
17925674
submission
radioweather writes:
The cryptic press release NASA made last week that set the blogosphere afire with conjecture, which announced: "NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." may be a case of "go fever" science pushed too quickly by press release. A
scathing article in Slate.com lists some very prominent microbiologists who say the NASA backed study is seriously flawed and that the finding may be based on something a simple as poor sample washing to remove phosphate contamination. One of the scientists, Shelley Copley of the University of Colorado said “This paper should not have been published,” while another,
John Roth of UC-Davis says: "I suspect that NASA may be so desperate for a positive story that they didn't look for any serious advice from DNA or
even microbiology people," The experience reminded some of another press conference NASA held in 1996. Scientists unveiled a meteorite from Mars in which
they said there were microscopic fossils. A number of critics condemned the
report (also published in Science) for making claims it couldn't back up.
17911888
submission
radioweather writes:
On Sunday, the drifting rogue "zombie" Galaxy 15 satellite with a stuck transmitter interfered with the satellite data distribution system used by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS), effectively shutting down data sharing between NWS offices nationwide, as well as weather support groups for the U.S. Air force. This left many
forecasters without data, imagery, and maps. Interference from Galaxy 15 affected transmissions of the SES-1 Satellite, which not only serves NOAA with data relay services, but also is used to feed TV programming into virtually every cable network in the U.S. NOAA's Network Control Facility reports that the computer system affected was NOAA's Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) used to issue forecasts and weather bulletins which uses the weather data feed. They also state the problem is likely to recur again this month before the satellite drifts out of range and eventually dies due to battery depletion.
1140093
submission
radioweather writes:
August 2008 has made solar history. As of 00 UTC September 1st 2008 (5PM PST)
we just witnessed the
first spotless calendar month since June 1913.This was determined according
to sunspot
data from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, which goes back to 1749.
In the 95 years since 1913, we've had quite an active sun, but activity has been
declining in the last few years.
The sun today is a nearly featureless sphere and has been spotless for 42
days total, but this is the first full calendar month since 1913 for a spotless
sun. And there are other indicators of the sun being in a funk. Australia's
space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the
expected date for a ramping up of
cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months.
711325
submission
radioweather writes:
An article from the
Financial Post
says that recent studies of
biosphere imaging from the NASA SEAWIFS satellite indicate that the Earth's
biomass is booming.
The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and
Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA satellite
data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole
became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated
landmass — almost 110 million square kilometers — enjoyed significant
increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms
in, it finds that each square meter of land, on average, now produces almost 500
grams of greenery per year.
Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the
planet and the presence of CO2, fertilizing the biota and resulting in the
increased green side effect.
