Solar Eclipses - Interactive Google Maps Thermodynamics: Albedo Albedo is a non-dimensional, unitless quantity that indicates how well a surface reflects solar energy. Albedo varies between 0 and 1. Albedo commonly refers to the "whiteness" of a surface, with 0 meaning black and 1 meaning white. Albedo generally applies to visible light, although it may involve some of the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Sea ice has a much higher albedo compared to other Earth surfaces, such as the surrounding ocean. Snow has an even higher albedo than sea ice, and so thick sea ice covered with snow reflects as much as 90 percent of the incoming solar radiation. This animation shows what Earth would look like if all the ice melted Earlier this week, NASA revealed that Earth's oceans are rising faster than expected, and the space agency projected that we're now "locked in" to at least 90 cm of sea level rise in the coming decades. That in itself would be enough to displace millions of people around the world, but if this trend continues and all our polar ice caps and glaciers melt, it's been predicted that the oceans will rise by a mind-blowing 65.8 metres (216 feet). So where will all that water end up? Some of the areas that go under first are probably unsurprising - low-lying islands and already water-logged cities such as Venice are quick to disappear. But when the globe spins around to Asia around the halfway mark, things get pretty real, with huge cities like Calcutta and Shanghai disappearing into the ocean altogether (that's a combined population of almost 19 million people).
Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 Aug 21 Google Maps and Solar Eclipse Paths Your web browser must have Javascript turned on. The following browsers have been successfully tested with Google Maps: Macintosh - Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 4+, Safari 4+, Opera 10.5+ Windows - Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 4+, Explorer 8+, Opera 10.5+ Linux - Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 4+ iOS - Safari Mobile 4+, Chrome 25+, Opera Mini 5+ Android - Android 2.3+, Firefox 19+, Chrome 25+ Introduction This interactive Google map shows the path of the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 Aug 21. The green marker labeled GE is the point of Greatest Eclipse. Note that the central line of the eclipse (plotted in red) is banded by different colors for hundreds of miles east and west of the Greatest Duration marker. You can be hundreds of miles from the theoretical point of Greatest Duration and still enjoy totality lasting within a fraction of a second of the maximum possible (as long as you stay within several miles of the central line). User Directions Eclipse Circumstances Footnotes
Female Scientist Eunice Newton Foote Warned Us About Climate Change in 1856 – LX Since the 1800s, humans have had plenty of warnings about the dangers of climate change for the future of the planet and life as we know it. One of the first instances of a scientist sounding the alarm came in the 1850s, during the American Industrial Revolution, from a woman named Eunice Newton Foote. And let's just say her research foreshadowed how both climate change and discerning women would be treated by society for decades to come. Foote wasn't allowed to present her own work at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1856. Nope, the highly regarded Joseph Henry, first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, did that. Her experiments are now considered a precursor to those done in 1859 by John Tyndall, who proved the greenhouse effect comes from gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide absorbing heat radiated from the surface of the Earth (not the sun's rays) and redirecting it back toward Earth. So what exactly was Foote's experiment?
Watch As 15 Years' Worth Of Earthquakes Shake The Planet A remarkable animation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows every recorded earthquake that took place between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2015. It’s like watching the world fall apart in real-time. Some notable and devastating earthquakes are of course included in this animation, an interactive version of which can be found by clicking here. The tsunami-inducing Tohoku earthquake that killed over 18,000 people in March 2011 in Japan can be seen, as can the December 2004 Sumatran quake and tsunami that killed nearly quarter of a million. Over the last 15 years, there have been 20 earthquakes registering as 8.0M or larger. Not only were these tremors incredibly destructive, but they were once-in-a-lifetime occurrences. The most powerful earthquake in recorded history, a 9.5M, took place in Chile back in May 1960. A model animation of the tsunami generated by the record-breaking 2011 Tohoku earthquake off the coast of Japan.
Climate and Ice Most of us do not live in polar regions. We do not come in contact with icebergs or ice sheets very often. Most of us have only seen these things in photographs. However, no matter where you live, the snow and ice of the Earth’s cryosphere has an impact on your climate. Because the cryosphere - the icy part of our planet - is so interconnected with other parts of the Earth system, what happens in the cryosphere affects the whole Earth. As climate change causes temperature to rise, ice melts. Some of the reasons that changes to the cryosphere affect the planet as a whole are because of feedbacks that cause more warming. Melting ice causes more warming. When solar radiation hits snow and ice, approximately 90% of it is reflected back out to space. Melting permafrost releases greenhouse gases. Global warming is causing soils in the polar regions that have been frozen for as much as 40,000 years to thaw. Less ice on land means sea level rises.
Clouds, Precipitation, and Climate Change Evaporation, Precipitation and Climate Change Rising global temperatures are likely to accelerate evaporation rates worldwide. So more evaporation is likely to lead to more rainfall, in a globally averaged sense. Many scientists speak of a "spun up" water cycle as a result of global warming; meaning there would be more water cycling through the atmosphere as a result of the increased precipitation rate. There is no guarantee, however, that these increased evaporation and precipitation rates will be distributed evenly worldwide. Warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide levels may encourage plant growth in many regions. Clouds and Climate Different types of clouds have different affects on the Earth's climate. Currently, the combined effect of all clouds is one of net cooling, meaning that clouds are dampening the rate of global warming. What if climate change causes the number of cooling clouds to increase? For more information about clouds and climate: