NOAA Archives - The Silver Ink

Intense solar storm creates spectacular northern lights

June 24, 2015 By Kyle Mills Leave a Comment

The solar storm which has reached Earth on Monday continues to pepper the planet’s magnetic field, and the forecasters say that they have the potential to disrupt the power grids and the GPS system.

This is not it, there are more on the way, stargazers will have a few days to catch the glimpse of the aurora borealis or northern lights.

Solar storms as well as solar wind are known to be caused when the sun sends out giant burst of magnetic fields and gas. They travel the entire solar system and hit Earth.

NOAA or National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration officials said, “Solar wind conditions remain highly favorable for continued Strong Geomagnetic storming, with both fast solar wind and strong magnetic fields. Aurora watchers in North America, especially northern tier states of the US, should stay alert.”

The storms solar winds buoyed by a solar flare released Sunday have continued to bombard Earth.

Leading officials at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center’s are categorizing the storm as a G4 level, which means it a severe geomagnetic storm.

As the storm first arrived, unusually intense Northern lights were seen from space on Monday. Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut, currently aboard the International Space Station or ISS has posted series of photos showcasing the glowing interactions between the solar radiation and the magnetic field of the Earth.

The most intense solar storms tend to be red, with less intense winds resulting in blues and greens.

No significant communication disruptions have been reported on Tuesday.

It’s likely local power grids have witnessed minor current fluctuations as a result of the radiation, but modern electrical systems are designed to withstand such circumstances.

On Monday, another flare was launched from the solar surface, sending out another wave of radiation. Those storming solar winds are expected to arrive late Wednesday and last through Thursday.

SWPC forecaster in a recent update has written, “This timing bodes well for aurora watchers in North America.”

Climate change shows no sign of slowing, US scientists say

June 5, 2015 By Jeff Suchon Leave a Comment

Over the past 15 years, climate scientists had trouble explaining why the expected global warming never really took place that time period.

But this is explained by a new study, it revealed that Earth’s average surface temperature has increased by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit each decade since 1950, largely due to the heat trapping properties of greenhouse gases.

The findings of the study flew in the face of the recent narrative that for some inexplicable reason, global climate change was causing temperatures to remain more or less constant across globe.

Various theories tried to explain the slowdown in temperature increase, including volcanic ash and dust blocking radiation from reaching the surface, a rare low period in the solar cycle, and absorption of massive amounts of heat by the world’s oceans.

Climate skeptics have clung on to the hiatus as evidence that global warming was little more than a scam.

The new findings have drawn criticism from both environments from thousands of land station, research ships, buoys, some of which had been collecting data since 1889.
Judith Curry, a climatologist at Georgia Tech didn’t find the new NOAA study convincing at all. Curry studies natural variability in climate cycles and said that these changes can cause more of an impact than greenhouse gasses from industrial sources and other human activities. She said the study was published solely for political purposes.

Willian Patzert, a NASA climatologist said that the NOAA going over the data again was going thing, but he also believes that hiatus actually happened.

The study claimed that the problems with how temperature data is collected might have masked the oceans ability to absorb heat energy coming from sun. After correcting for those problems, the study found that he hiatus vanished from the data.

Whether the slowdown in global warming observed over the last 15 years is the result of faulty data collection or some actual phenomenon we have yet to understand, but it is not guaranteed that the slowdown will last forever.

Scientists uncover extremely unique pocket shark

April 25, 2015 By Doyle Buehler Leave a Comment

Making an extremely unique discovery, the NOAA researchers have found a never seen tiny shark called pocket shark.

The research was led by scientist Mark Grace, who came across the rare discovery while filtering a holding tank of deep ocean water that was collected in 2010.

The researchers carried a comparative analysis of a tissue sample and the massive specimen collection at the Biodiversity Research Institute of Tulane University. It was found that the specimen belonged to a pocket shark, which is named for two small pockets under its fins, whose importance remains unknown. The researchers said that the rare variety of sharks is just the second specimen that has been ever found.

Grace, from the NOAA Fisheries’ lab, said, “The pocket shark we found was only five and a half inches long, and was a recently born male. Discovering him has us thinking about where mom and dad may be, and how they got to the Gulf. The only other known specimen was found very far away, off Peru, 36 years ago.”

The specimen was apparently slurped up when the scientists had captured a big tank of water, which was 190 miles off Louisiana coast. The main purpose of the 2010 expedition of the NOAA’s ship Pisces was to understand the process of the sperm whale feeding in the Gulf.

Until now, the researchers were of the belief that the unique shark was very exclusive to the deep waters of the southeast Pacific Ocean, near Peru and Chile.

The genetic analysis indicates that the pocket shark belongs to the genus Mollisquama. It is closely associated with the cookie cutter and kitefin sharks, which belongs to the family Dalatiidae. According to the scientists, very little is known about the rare shark’s biological composition, behavior and habitat range.

“This record of such an extremely rare fish is very exciting. However, it’s a very important reminder that we still have much to learn about the species that inhabit our oceans,” Grace said.

The findings of the study were published in the journal Zootaxa.

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