Polar Clouds

This image is entrancing - every time I look at I see more swirls in its murky mists. Its almost hypnotic appeal required a posting.

Quick excerpt from NASA's Earth Observatory:

Click here to view full image (292 kb)

In the summertime in the far northern or southern latitudes, high in the Earth’s atmosphere at the edge of space, thin, silvery clouds sometimes become visible just after sunset. These high clouds, occurring at altitudes of about 80 kilometers (50 miles), are called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs). They are also called noctilucent (“night-shining”) clouds. In recent years, polar mesospheric clouds seem to be occurring more frequently and at lower latitudes than they have in the past, and studies are underway to determine whether their occurrence is related to global climate change.

Full Story at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17737

Featured astronaut photograph STS117-E-6998 was acquired by the STS-117 crew on June 10, 2007, with a Kodak 760C digital camera using an 180 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been enhanced to improve contrast. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

I "Thaw" what You Did This Summer

This summer thaw in Eastern Greenland is a gorgeous yet frightening image the nature of global climate change and glacial retreat.

Quick excerpt from NASA's Earth Observatory site (link to full story below):

Summer thaw was underway on the fringe of eastern Greenland when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this image on July 13, 2007. Inland (left), snow and ice make a white blanket, while closer to sea (center and right) the annual snow has retreated from much of the rocky coastline and from the surface of some glaciers, which appear slightly gray. In the fjords, melt water carrying finely ground sediment, crushed by the movement of glaciers over rock, colors the water turquoise. Sea ice (lower right) has fractured into geometric blocks, and small chunks of ice are scattered in some fjords like confetti. At far right, ice has disintegrated or been crushed into such small pieces that it looks like froth or foam swirling in the waters of the Greenland Sea.

Full story at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17711

World Perspective - Global Carbon Issue

Taken from NASA's photo collection, with an animated link to the time-flow display of high levels of carbon monoxide on a global scale
Click here to view animation (9840 kb) - yet another reminder everything has it impact.

Short Excerpt (taken from story - full link below):

The streak of red, orange, and yellow across South America, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean in this image points to high levels of carbon monoxide on September 30, 2005, as measured by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The carbon monoxide primarily comes from fires burning in the Amazon basin, with some additional contribution from fires in southern Africa. The fires blanketed much of South America with smoke, as shown in a photo-like image captured by the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite on September 20. The animation (available by clicking on the image) shows carbon monoxide, one component of the smoke, sweeping east throughout August and September 2005. Fires in Africa probably contributed to the high concentrations of carbon monoxide over Africa and the Indian Ocean.
Released when carbon is burned, carbon monoxide is a harmful pollutant that reduces the amount of oxygen that can reach tissue and organs in the body. Additionally, carbon monoxide is a precursor to ground-level ozone and smog, so a global measurement of the gas provides a good indicator of the overall health of the atmosphere. On a global basis, nearly 50 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from man-made sources, and the rest come from biomass burning, as shown here, or natural sources, says Dr. Wallace McMillan from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology.

Full Story at:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17724

Interesting side reading:

New NASA AIRS Data to Aid Weather, Climate Research, on the NASA news page.
Smoke gets in your eyes: NASA study shows global impacts of pollution, on the AIRS web site.
Image courtesy NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory