Research on clouds and the atmosphere. Covers Southern Ocean clouds, ocean-derived aerosols, sea-ice cloud formation, and dust after impacts.
Tropical Storm Lekima was formed on August 4 as Tropical Depression 10W, strengthening into a tropical storm on August 5. NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed the storm, finding cloud top temperatures of strongest thunderstorms as cold as or colder than minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit.
Tropical Storm Francisco is expected to bring heavy rainfall to southern Japan as it approaches landfall. The strongest storms have cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating strong potential for heavy rainfall.
Tropical Storm Gil formed on August 3 and strengthened to 40mph before weakening and degenerating into a remnant low pressure area. NASA's Terra satellite detected small areas of strong storms with cloud top temperatures as cold as -50F in the Eastern Pacific.
Tropical Storm Wipha has filled the Gulf of Tonkin with clouds, according to NASA satellite imagery. The storm is expected to make landfall in northern Vietnam and then weaken as it moves west-southwest, dissipating over north Vietnam.
Tropical Storm Flossie is expected to cross into the Central Pacific basin later today, carrying maximum sustained winds of near 70 mph and a minimum central pressure of 993 millibars. Gradual weakening is anticipated over the weekend, with further decline in forward speed expected through early next week.
Tropical Storm Erick's center was located near latitude 16.8 degrees north latitude and 157.4 degrees west longitude using data from NASA satellites, including Aqua and Suomi NPP. The storm is forecast to weaken into a tropical depression by Sunday, with potential for heavy rainfall and dangerous surf conditions in the Hawaiian Islands.
Tropical Storm Francisco formed in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean and was observed by NASA's Terra satellite using infrared light. The storm showed coldest cloud top temperatures as low as -80 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating strong thunderstorms with potential for heavy rainfall.
Hurricane Erick is a small storm with strong thunderstorms holding on, but expected to significantly weaken as it passes Hawaii. The National Hurricane Center forecasts Erick's winds will be 200 miles from the islands.
NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites analyzed Flossie's cloud top temperatures and structure as the storm strengthened. The strongest storms had colder cloud temperatures, indicating potential for heavy rainfall.
NASA used satellite data to analyze Hurricane Erick's rainfall rates and cloud temperatures, revealing coldest cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit. The heaviest rainfall was found near the northern eyewall of the storm's center, with rates exceeding 40 mm per hour.
Tropical Storm Wipha formed quickly in the South China Sea, with NASA's Aqua satellite detecting strong thunderstorms and cold cloud top temperatures. The storm is expected to move northwest towards southern China, making landfall near Hanoi, Vietnam.
NASA's Aqua satellite detected coldest cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating strong storms capable of heavy rain. The storm's center has migrated southward toward the strongest convection, positioning just north of the coldest cloud tops.
NASA analyzed water vapor content and temperature information from Hurricane Erick using MODIS instrument on July 30. The analysis found highest concentrations of water vapor and coldest cloud top temperatures around the storm's eye, indicating potential for heavy rainfall.
Tropical Storm Erick is strengthening in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, with powerful thunderstorms and cold cloud tops indicating potential for heavy rainfall. The National Hurricane Center forecasts Erick to become a hurricane by Tuesday, with a turn towards the west-northwest expected.
NASA's Aqua satellite measures cloud top temperatures of Tropical Storm Flossie, revealing strong storms with cold temperatures of minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit. The storm is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane on Tuesday, with maximum sustained winds increasing to near 50 mph.
NASA's Terra satellite reveals two areas of intense storms in Tropical Storm Nari, with cloud top temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The storm is moving northward toward Japan, expected to make landfall and then dissipate over cooler waters.
NASA's Aqua satellite detected a small area of strong thunderstorms with cold cloud top temperatures, enough to maintain Tropical Depression Dalila's tropical cyclone classification. The depression is forecasted to weaken and become a post-tropical remnant low in the coming days.
The storm is being affected by moderate vertical wind shear from the southwest, which can displace clouds and showers around the center. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts 07W to move north before dissipating in Japan.
Tropical Storm Dalila strengthened after NASA's Aqua satellite detected reduced wind shear, enabling stronger storms to form around its center. The storm is now forecast to weaken by Thursday and potentially degenerate into a remnant low.
A new tropical depression formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean with strongest storms southwest of its center due to vertical wind shear, indicating potential for heavy rainfall. The depression is moving north at 9 mph and expected to become a tropical storm later today or tonight.
Post-Tropical Cyclone Barry is moving towards the east-northeast near 22 mph, with a center of circulation located about 90 miles northeast of Indianapolis. The storm is expected to produce flash flooding and additional rain accumulations in the Upper Ohio and Upper Tennessee Valleys
Tropical Storm Barry is expected to make landfall in south-central Louisiana, bringing heavy rainfall and strong winds. The storm's cloud top temperatures indicate a high level of organization, suggesting heavy rainfall potential.
Scientists found that crystalline ammonium nitrate forms in the upper troposphere during the Asian monsoon, significantly influencing cloud properties. The aerosol's impact on climate models is a major uncertainty, but this discovery improves our understanding of interactions between clouds and aerosols.
NASA's Aqua satellite detected a potential tropical cyclone in the Gulf of Mexico, with extremely cold cloud tops indicating heavy rain. The storm is moving westward and has the potential to strengthen into a hurricane by Friday.
Tropical Storm Cosme formed over the weekend of July 6 and 7, weakening to a remnant low pressure area within days. NASA's Aqua satellite captured the storm's decline, revealing a wispy ring of clouds devoid of strong thunderstorms.
Hurricane Barbara is being torn apart by winds outside its storm, with a weakening trend expected. The storm's eyewall structure is disintegrating, and cooler sea surface temperatures are ahead of the storm.
During the Earth's last geomagnetic reversal, high-energy particles from space increased cloud cover, leading to stronger winter monsoons in Siberia. This suggests that galactic cosmic rays can influence climate changes.
NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites detected Barbara as a powerful hurricane with maximum sustained winds of near 130 mph (215 kph). The storm is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 25 miles from the center.
Researchers developed an AI framework that detects rotational movements in clouds from satellite images, pointing to potentially threatening storm formations. The method achieved 99% accuracy and predicted 64% of severe weather events, outperforming existing detection methods.
A new study published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics suggests that the climate impact of contrail cirrus, formed from airplane contrails, will triple by 2050. The radiative forcing caused by contrail cirrus will be larger than expected CO2 emissions due to increased air traffic activity.
Tropical Storm Alvin has strengthened into a strong tropical storm just over 500 miles from Mexico's Baja California peninsula. Satellite imagery reveals improved convective structure and organized clouds around the low-level center.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have developed a conceptual model that explains how thunderstorm clouds form dense clusters, influenced by solar irradiation and ocean temperatures. This phenomenon can impact climate change predictions and extreme weather events.
Clouds play a crucial role in projecting future Greenland ice sheet melt, with high emission scenarios showing the most significant uncertainty. The study found that clouds can increase or decrease sea level rise by up to 11 cm within the next thousand years.
An international research team reconstructed ice nucleating particles from ice cores for the first time, providing insights into cloud cover in the Arctic over the last 500 years. The measurements could help close gaps in knowledge on climate research and inform future climate changes.
Tropical Cyclone Vayu weakened due to dry air and wind shear, preventing thunderstorm development. The storm made landfall near Naliya, India, with minimal sustained winds of 40 mph.
Researchers discovered that meteors create 'meteoric smoke' in Mars' middle atmosphere, condensing into thin clouds. These clouds have a significant impact on the Martian climate, influencing temperatures and potentially affecting past evolution.
Tropical Cyclone Vayu is weakening due to increasing vertical wind shear, causing it to elongate and potentially intensify into a hurricane. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center predicts landfall near the India/Pakistan border by June 17.
Tropical Cyclone Vayu's central dense overcast feature was approximately 90-100 nautical miles in diameter, showing a compact and intense storm system. The cyclone is forecast to strengthen slightly and move northwest towards Pakistan, with its center keeping off-shore from India.
Tropical Cyclone Vayu intensified as its cloud top temperatures cooled, reaching -63 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA's Aqua satellite detected a compact core with bands of thunderstorms wrapping around it, indicating strong storms capable of creating heavy rain.
Tropical Cyclone 02A is developing in the Arabian Sea with warm sea surface temperatures and strong winds. Forecasters predict peak winds of 60 knots on June 12, with landfall near Jamnagar around June 14.
System 91L is a tropical low pressure system located in the Bay of Campeche, spanning across Mexico's Yucatan state and surrounding states. The system has a 40% chance to develop into a depression over the next two days, producing heavy rainfall over eastern Mexico, southeastern Texas, and the Lower Mississippi Valley.
NASA's Aqua satellite detected a low-pressure area with strong thunderstorms and cold cloud top temperatures, indicating the potential for heavy rainfall. The system is forecast to move northwestward towards Mexico's northeastern coast, where it could become a tropical cyclone.
Dr. Wiebke Frey is using wind tunnel experiments and model simulations to investigate mixing processes at cloud edges, which affect cloud lifetime and climate sensitivity estimates. Her goal is to develop a reliable formulation for understanding entrainment, a key process in climate modeling.
NASA analyzed Tropical Cyclone Lili using infrared data from the Aqua satellite, revealing strongest thunderstorms north of the center with cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Dry air entrainment is expected to continue sapping the storm's ability to generate thunderstorms, leading to its dissipation in a day.
NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites tracked Tropical Cyclone Fani as it strengthened and moved north through the Northern Indian Ocean. The storm showed signs of strong thunderstorms with cloud top temperatures as cold as -63 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating heavy rain potential.
Tropical Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in northern Mozambique with maximum wind speeds of 140 miles per hour, causing significant rainfall and flooding. The storm's remnants continue to linger over the region, generating strong winds and severe thunderstorms.
Scientists study cloud top temperatures and identify strongest storms around the center of circulation and in a band of thunderstorms southwest of the center. The satellite data reveals cold cloud tops, indicating powerful storms with high rainfall potential.
Researchers have discovered needle-like structures in positively charged lightning leaders that store negative charges, causing repeated discharges to the ground. This new finding explains why lightning often strikes twice and provides a deeper understanding of lightning development.
Climate change could cause Western Hemisphere cloud forests to shrink and dry by 60-80% in as few as 25 years. The loss of clouds would nearly disappear the highly diverse alpine ecosystems above these equatorial cloud forests, known as páramo.
A team of researchers has discovered a new property of supercooled water that can be triggered by subatomic particles like dark matter. They created a detector, called the "snowball chamber", which uses supercooled water to detect fundamental particles and potentially identify dark matter.
A 'Human Brain/Cloud Interface' could provide individuals with instantaneous access to all cumulative human knowledge, improving learning capacities and intelligence. The technology, predicted to be developed within decades, aims to connect neurons and synapses in the brain to vast cloud-computing networks.
Scientists at the University of New Hampshire have documented a unique event called fast negative breakdown, which shows that lightning can form in clouds through an upward pathway. This discovery provides new insight into how lightning begins and spreads, and may lead to a better understanding of this natural phenomenon.
Tropical Cyclone Wallace was sheared apart by northwesterly winds, causing its clouds to spread far inland. The storm's rotation was weakened due to wind shear, a phenomenon where winds at different altitudes push against the rotating cylinder of winds.
Researchers from ETH Zürich and the University of Utah discovered that water vapor condenses in small particle pores to nucleate ice crystals. This process called Pore Condensation and Freezing is a key factor in understanding cold cloud formation and its impact on climate.
Subtropical Cyclone Joaninha was torn apart by strong wind shear in the Southern Indian Ocean, according to NASA. The storm weakened from a maximum sustained wind speed of 35 knots (40 mph) as it moved south-southwest.
Tropical Cyclone Joaninha's maximum sustained winds dropped to 65 knots on March 29, 2019, after being pushed away from its center. The storm was expected to weaken further due to increasing wind shear and cooler sea surface temperatures.
A team of planetary scientists used Hubble images to track the growth of a new Great Dark Spot on Neptune, finding that dark spots originate deeper in the planet's atmosphere than previously thought. The study also revealed that these storms occur with a frequency of every four to six years and last up to six years.
Dust particles from glacial outwash plains can serve as efficient nuclei for ice nucleation, contributing significantly to ice nucleation in Arctic low-level clouds. This study highlights the impact of high-latitude dusts on glaciation and adds to our understanding of climate regulation by clouds.
A new study reveals how clouds are modifying the warming caused by human-caused climate change in northern Scandinavia. Cloud cover has reduced the impact of natural phases of warmth and is doing so again to moderate the warming.
Savannah's maximum sustained winds dropped to 35 knots (40 mph) as it weakened under strong vertical wind shear from the northwest. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued its final warning at 5 a.m. EDT, predicting further dissipation later in the day.