Global Warming?

[MtnBiker]

Not on Earth but on Saturn
Astronomers Discover 'Hot Spot' on Saturn
Friday, February 04, 2005

HONOLULU — Astronomers using a giant telescope atop a volcano have discovered a hot spot at the tip of Saturn's (search) south pole.

The infrared images captured by the Keck I telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island suggest a warm polar vortex — a large-scale weather pattern likened to a jet stream on Earth (search) that occurs in the upper atmosphere. It's the first such hot vortex ever discovered in the solar system.

The team of scientists say the images are the sharpest thermal views of Saturn ever taken from the ground. Their work will be a published in Friday's editions of the journal Science.

This warm polar cap is believed to contain the highest temperatures on Saturn; the scientists did not give a temperature estimate.

On Earth, the Arctic Polar Vortex (search) is typically located over eastern North America in Canada and plunges cold arctic air to the northern Plains in the United States.

Polar vortices are found on Earth, Jupiter, Mars and Venus, and are colder than their surroundings. The new images from the Keck Observatory show the first evidence of a polar vortex at much warmer temperatures.


"Saturn's is the first hot polar vortex that we've seen because it's been sitting in the sunlight for about 18 years," said Glenn S. Orton, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and lead author.

Saturn, which takes many earth years to orbit the sun, just had its summer solstice in 2002.

"If the increased southern temperatures are solely the result of seasonality, then the temperature should increase gradually with increasing latitude, but it doesn't," Orton said. "We see that the temperature increases abruptly by several degrees near 70 degrees south and again at 87 degrees south.

"A really hot thing within a couple degrees of the pole is something I don't understand at all," he said.

Scientists may learn more from the data coming from the infrared spectrometer on the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn, information that is expected to complement the Keck discovery, Orton said.

Link

 

[no1tovote4]

Not on Earth but on Saturn
Astronomers Discover 'Hot Spot' on Saturn
Friday, February 04, 2005

HONOLULU — Astronomers using a giant telescope atop a volcano have discovered a hot spot at the tip of Saturn's (search) south pole.

The infrared images captured by the Keck I telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island suggest a warm polar vortex — a large-scale weather pattern likened to a jet stream on Earth (search) that occurs in the upper atmosphere. It's the first such hot vortex ever discovered in the solar system.

The team of scientists say the images are the sharpest thermal views of Saturn ever taken from the ground. Their work will be a published in Friday's editions of the journal Science.

This warm polar cap is believed to contain the highest temperatures on Saturn; the scientists did not give a temperature estimate.

On Earth, the Arctic Polar Vortex (search) is typically located over eastern North America in Canada and plunges cold arctic air to the northern Plains in the United States.

Polar vortices are found on Earth, Jupiter, Mars and Venus, and are colder than their surroundings. The new images from the Keck Observatory show the first evidence of a polar vortex at much warmer temperatures.


"Saturn's is the first hot polar vortex that we've seen because it's been sitting in the sunlight for about 18 years," said Glenn S. Orton, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and lead author.

Saturn, which takes many earth years to orbit the sun, just had its summer solstice in 2002.

"If the increased southern temperatures are solely the result of seasonality, then the temperature should increase gradually with increasing latitude, but it doesn't," Orton said. "We see that the temperature increases abruptly by several degrees near 70 degrees south and again at 87 degrees south.

"A really hot thing within a couple degrees of the pole is something I don't understand at all," he said.

Scientists may learn more from the data coming from the infrared spectrometer on the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn, information that is expected to complement the Keck discovery, Orton said.

Link

Hmm, I wonder if we can start blaming it on the actions of the Saturnalians, they obviously don't care about their environment.

 

[MtnBiker]

Hmm, I wonder if we can start blaming it on the actions of the Saturnalians, they obviously don't care about their environment.

It's probably the emmissions from the Mars rover.

 

[no1tovote4]

It's probably the emmissions from the Mars rover.

Whew! I thought we weren't going to be able to blame this on humans! What about the EU probe on Titan? I think it must have added to the problem as well.

 

[MtnBiker]

Whew! I thought we weren't going to be able to blame this on humans! What about the EU probe on Titan? I think it must have added to the problem as well.

Well of course, and that space junk flying around up there probably are emmitting some sort of cosmic heat death rays.

 

[Johnney]

we could use some global warming in good old clinton iowa right now....

 

[Hobbit]

Somehow, it's a lack of gay marriage and free abortions that caused it.

 

[no1tovote4]

Somehow, it's a lack of gay marriage and free abortions that caused it.

Yes clearly we need to push such an agenda in government. Kill the children so that Saturn will return to its natural state! We may even be able to make bumper stickers.

[/sarcasm]

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - it's gonna get worse before it gets better...

Summer weather is getting 'stuck' due to Arctic warming


20 Aug.`18 - Rising arctic temperatures mean we face a future of ‘extreme extremes’ where sunny days become heatwaves and rain becomes floods, study says

Summer weather patterns are increasingly likely to stall in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, according to a new climate study that explains why Arctic warming is making heatwaves elsewhere more persistent and dangerous. Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, says the paper, which means high and low pressure fronts are getting stuck and weather is less able to moderate itself.

The authors of the research, published in Nature Communications on Monday, warn this could lead to “very extreme extremes”, which occur when abnormally high temperatures linger for an unusually prolonged period, turning sunny days into heat waves, tinder-dry conditions into wildfires, and rains into floods. “This summer was where we saw a very strong intensity of heatwaves. It’ll continue and that’s very worrying, especially in the mid-latitudes: the EU, US, Russia and China,” said one of the coauthors, Dim Coumou from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Short-term heatwaves are quite pleasant, but longer term they will have an impact on society. It’ll have an affect on agricultural production. Harvests are already down this year for many products. Heatwaves can also have a devastating impact on human health.”

Rising arctic temperatures have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, which means pressure fronts are getting stuck and the weather is less able to moderate itself, say researchers.​

Circulation stalling has long been a concern of climate scientists, though most previous studies have looked at winter patterns. The new paper reviews research on summer trends, where it says there is mounting evidence of planetary wind systems – both low-level storm tracks and higher waves in the troposphere – losing their ability to shift the weather. One cause is a weakening of the temperature gradient between the Arctic and Equator as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The far north of the Earth is warming two to four times faster than the global average, says the paper, which means there is a declining temperature gap with the central belt of the planet. As this ramp flattens, winds struggle to build up sufficient energy and speed to push around pressure systems in the area between them.

As a result, there is less relief in the form of mild and wet air from the sea when temperatures accumulate on land, and less relief from the land when storms build up in the ocean. Last year, Hurricane Harvey had a devastating impact on Texas because it was parked an unusually long time on the coast, where it kept drawing up moisture from the sea and dumping it in the form of the greatest deluge ever recorded in the US. Scientists had previously noted that hurricanes are slowing and bringing more rain. A separate new paper in Scientific Reports indicated that the trapping of planetary airstreams – a phenomenon known as amplified quasi-stationary waves – also contributed to the 2016 wildfires in Alberta, which took two months to extinguish and ended as the costliest disaster in Canadian history with total damages reaching 4.7bn Canadian dollars.

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