Geo-Pic: Mapping a Hurricane from the "Outside In"

Found this post from NASA's Earth Observatory an interesting perspective to storm data.

 Quick "Cut & Paste" Description: 

".... one satellite—Cloudsat—peered inside the storm and observed its vertical structure. It did so with acloud-profiling radar that sent pulses of energy toward Earth and recorded the strength of the signal that bounced off ice and water particles."

"....The bottom map shows the storm as observed by Cloudsat around 2 p.m. local time (18:00 Universal Time) on October 29, 2012. The image shows a cross-section—what the storm would look like if it had been sliced near the middle and viewed from the side. (Watch this animation to see how Cloudsat collects data).... "

 Image: Vertical "cut-away" of storm precipitation: 

" ... The top image, acquired the same day by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on the Aqua satellite, is shown for reference. The yellow line is the north-to-south track that CloudSat took over the storm.

In the Cloudsat data, the darkest blues represent areas where clouds and raindrops reflected the strongest signal back to the satellite radar. These areas had the heaviest precipitation and the largest water droplets. The blue line in the center of the image is the freezing line; ice particles formed above it, raindrops below..." 

Credits:
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using CloudSat FirstLook data provided courtesy of the CloudSat team at Colorado State University. Caption by Adam Voiland.

Instrument: 

CloudSat - CPR

Mapping the Goldilocks Zone - the Precious Atmospheres of Three Planets

Everyone remembers the college "urban legend" of a competitive major's first freshman class, where the Professor standing from a podium before an audience of "wide-eyed" students, almost proudly boasts a sneering threat on their probability of academic failure.

It goes something like ... "For those of you freshman just accepted to [insert your prestigious University name here]'s elite major in [insert Engineering, Pre-Med, Physics or similar rigorous speciality here], I offer a prediction. It is based on historical fact. Look to the left of you, look to the right of you.  [Insert choice of 'impending doom' exclusion - One, Both or All] of you will not be here at graduation."

Perhaps surprisingly, this never made me think of the value of a good education, or even the value of a good teacher (possibly because for "my undergrad" I went to Penn State, joined a fraternity, and arguably majored in beer). But it did make me think of how lucky we are to have a planet is the "Goldilocks Zone". It's the "precious place in cosmic space" which resolves the childrens' story conundrum of "not too hot & not too cold"; a planetary zone that can support life as we know it.

This recent graphic from the UNEP/GRID-Arendal again reminded me of this blessing, our planetary orbital 'cradle' that brought us here today. 

In layman's terms, to one side of Earth, we have a "freeze-dried" planet, Mars - also called the red planet from its reddish appearance yet almost inspite of its prevailing surface temperatures. Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about −87 °C (−125 °F) during the polar winters to highs of up to −5 °C (23 °F) in summers. Summary: Too cold.

To the other side, Venus. While named for a goddess of beauty, it might as well be called the "microwave" planet. Also once called Earth's "sister" planet, it has an atmosphere that releases so little of the sun's energy that its effectively "overcooked", with an almost constant surface temperatures of over 460 °C (860 °F). Summary: Too hot.

An there in "the middle" is our beautiful, brilliant "blue marble" of Earth, hanging in the same cold void of space yet somehow teaming with life. Just right! 

Now when I "look left, look right" on a planetary scale, I see what we as humans must avoid "at home" and also the future opportunity to "travel abroad".  Venus stands as a global warning of atmospheric change, loudly proclaiming "beware your fragile atmosphere". While Mars is a potential path of planetary colonization in the future - for if humans know one thing, its how to warm a place up! Still a foreboding message, but one I like to ponder (often with a beer) & smile.

Full credits:
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Sources	Calvin, J. Hamilton, Views of the Solar System, www.planetscapes.com; Bill Arnett, The nine planets: a multimedia tour of the solar system, www.seds.org/billa/tnp/nineplanets.html
Link to web-site	http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3056.aspx
Cartographer/ Designer	Philippe Rekacewicz, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Appears in	Vital Climate Graphics
Published	2000