weather

Seeding Clouds To Relieve Megadrought

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Cloud seeding equipment on the wing of plane flying over North Dakota. JIM BRANDENBURG VIA MINDEN PICTURES

Times are tough with regard to water, among other things. Tough times call for creative measures. Be creative, but also beware of unintended consequences:

Can Cloud Seeding Help Quench the Thirst of the U.S. West?

In the midst of an historic megadrought, states in the American West are embracing cloud seeding to increase snow and rainfall. Recent research suggests that the decades-old approach can be effective, though questions remain about how much water it can wring from the sky.

Not since Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D. has the American West been so dry. Continue reading →

A Book For Our Times

/ Crist Inman / Leave a comment

thunder-lightning-cover.jpgThis book just came back to my attention, after reading a review–excerpt after the jump–many moons ago. I am reminded that it looks worth the read; the publisher’s description may prompt a yawn at first, but let it sink in (i.e. a blurb about a book about weather might make your eyes droop just as the thought of seeds in a vault might, until you let that sink in):

In Thunder & Lightning, Lauren Redniss reveals how weather shapes our world and daily lives. She takes readers on a journey from the Biblical flood to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, from the frozen archipelagos of the Arctic Ocean to the ‘absolute desert’ of Atacama, Chile, unearthing surprising stories of savagery, mystery, and wonder. Continue reading →

Aliens vs. Ice Giants

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Photo by Marko Korošec in Slovenia. Via thisiscolossal.com

This may look like a still from the trailer of a fictive blockbuster Aliens vs. Ice Giants, but it’s actually a photograph of nature on Mount Javornik in eastern Slovenia by Slovenian weather photographer Marko Korošec. Earlier this December, after periods of high winds, fog, and freezing temperatures, Korošec visited Mount Javornik and found everything covered in a deep layer of hard rime. Rime, or rime ice, is frost created on objects when water vapor freezes quickly. So in the photo above, perhaps a tree or small stone formation was being buffeted by freezing winds and fog, which accreted ice crystals on the structure that grew over time. The ice spikes, which apparently measured over three feet long in some cases, are formed by the continued winds that sculpt the rime into thin points.

Continue reading →

Music of the Spheres

/ Amie Inman / Leave a comment

Changing Water – Gulf of Maine, 2011, Nathalie Miebach

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes                                                              —Ludwig van Beethoven

Boston artist Nathalie Miebach found the seemingly unlikely intersection between astronomy, meteorology, ecology and basket weaving, essentially translating data into 3 dimensions… then she adds the plane of music.  For her work, Miebach was selected as a 2011 TEDGlobal Fellow.

Initially focusing her woven sculptures on data from the stars, her work was rerouted by a call from two weather scientists at Tufts University.  Intrigued by her work and it’s possible applications, they asked her to collect weather data on Cape Cod.  From that point on, winds, temperature, barometric pressures, and rainfall became part of the raw material for her artistic work. Continue reading →