General Meteorology and Earth Science Thread

I don't understand why hurricanes rotate counter clockwise. Wouldn't it be the other way ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect Like look at the graphic here. Assuming the red dot is a point on the equator, a hurricane in the northern hemisphere should rotate clockwise .

Edit: apparently it has something to do with high and low pressure systems.... Could someone explain this to me better than Wikipedia?

edited 23rd Jun '15 7:13:42 AM by Xopher001

On the northern hemisphere, cyclones rotate counterclockwise and anticyclones clockwise. Inverse on the southern hemisphere. This is because the air flowing into a cyclone is deflected sideward by the Coriolis force generating a counterclockwise movement. The same force produces a clockwise movement in the outflowing air of an anticyclone. In the southern hemisphere, the directions are reversed.

Weather is fun like that.

How does air flowing into a cyclone cause it to rotate counter clockwise? It would still be flowing slightly to the right

Because "right" means "counterclockwise".

...No it doesn't . If you placed a clock flat on its back, it's hands would always be ticking right . In this case ou have a bunch of those clocks covering the northern hemisphere, and their hands are basically air. I'm pretty sure I don't have right (—>) and left (<—) mixed up?

edited 23rd Jun '15 7:06:47 PM by Xopher001

Ah yeah. You are looking at it from the wrong direction. You need to look into the direction of the airflow, not in the opposite direction.

Ok I think I understand now. But what about air that flows out?

edited 24th Jun '15 9:41:45 AM by Xopher001

Iron: A biological element?: "Think of an object made of iron: An I-beam, a car frame, a nail. Now imagine that half of the iron in that object owes its existence to bacteria living two and a half billion years ago.

That's the upshot of a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The findings have meaning for fields as diverse as mining and the search for life in space."

Okay, here where it's supposed to go.

I was under the impression that a lot of chemosynthetic organisms favour iron sulphide as their main metabolite which suggests that it would have been more common before the Oxygenation catastrophe so it doesn't really seem to be that big a surprise.

'Hydrothermal siphon' drives water circulation through seafloor: "Vast quantities of ocean water circulate through the seafloor, flowing through the volcanic rock of the upper oceanic crust. A new study explains what drives this global process and how the flow is sustained. About 25 percent of the heat that flows out of Earth's interior is transferred to the oceans through this process."

Why June 30 will get an extra second

Study shows Lake Mega-Chad dried up far more quickly than thought: "A trio of researchers from the University of London and King's College, studying the history of Lake Chad has found that the lake was reduced to its current size very quickly just 1,000 years ago. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Simon Armitage, Charlie Bristow and Nick Drake describe how they conducted 'a reconstructed lake level history for the ancient Lake Mega-Chad,' and what they found by doing so."

Creating a stopwatch for volcanic eruptions: "We've long known that beneath the scenic landscapes of Yellowstone National Park sleeps a supervolcano with a giant chamber of hot, partly molten rock below it.

Though it hasn't risen from slumber in nearly 70,000 years, many wonder when Yellowstone volcano will awaken and erupt again. According to new research at Arizona State University, there may be a way to predict when that happens."

Ridges and valleys: Experiments open window on landscape formation: "Geologists have seen ridges and valleys form in real time and — even though the work was a fast-forwarded operation done in a laboratory setting — they now have an idea of how climate change may impact landscapes."

Volcanic rocks resembling Roman concrete explain record uplift in Italian caldera: "Fiber-reinforced rocks discovered at the site of Italy's dormant Campi Flegrei volcano are similar to a wonder-material used by the ancients to construct enduring structures such as the Pantheon, and may lead to improved construction materials."

Solar activity predicted to fall 60% in 2030s, to 'mini ice age' levels: Sun driven by double dynamo: "A new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. The model draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone. Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645."

Where does water go when it doesn’t flow? Three quarters doesn't make it to the ocean: "More than a quarter of the rain and snow that falls on continents reaches the oceans as runoff. Now a new study helps show where the rest goes: two-thirds of the remaining water is released by plants, more than a quarter lands on leaves and evaporates and what's left evaporates from soil and from lakes, rivers and streams."

NASA robots are exploring the mysterious depths of volcanoes: "Exactly how molten magma erupts from the depths of a volcano to the surface remains one of volcanology's biggest unsolved mysteries, but wall-crawling robots being developed researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California are well on the way to figuring out what goes on down there."

Submerged volcano cluster discovered off coast of Sydney: "Australia's new ocean-going research vessel Investigator has discovered extinct volcanoes likely to be 50 million years old about 250 kilometers off the coast of Sydney. They were discovered in 4,900 meters of water during an expedition searching for nursery grounds of larval lobsters. At the same time the ship was also routinely mapping the seafloor. The largest of the four volcanoes is 1.5 kilometers across the rim and rises 700 meters from the sea floor."

Afraid that bit about a new sunspot minimum is not completely accurate.

Not that I was surprised, though - the effects of solar variation on average temperatures are fairly minor.

Researchers map out trajectory of April 2015 earthquake in Nepal: "Researchers have accurately mapped out the movement of the devastating 7.8-magnitude Nepal earthquake that killed over 9,000 and injured over 23,000 people. Scientists have determined that the earthquake was a rupture consisting of three different stages. The study could help a rapidly growing region understand its future seismic risks."

Study finds abrupt climate change may have rocked the cradle of civilization: "New research reveals that some of the earliest civilizations in the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent may have been affected by abrupt climate change. These findings show that while socio-economic factors were traditionally considered to shape ancient human societies in this region, the influence of abrupt climate change should not be underestimated.

A team of international scientists led by researchers from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science found that during the first half of the last interglacial period known as the Holocene epoch, which began about 12,000 years ago and continues today, the Middle East most likely experienced wetter conditions in comparison with the last 6,000 years, when the conditions were drier and dustier."

Twin volcanic chains above a single hotspot with distinct roots: "Many processes inside the earth are still enigmatic. One of the open questions is how neighboring chains of volcanoes, supplied by the same volcanic hotspot, can emit material of distinct geochemical composition over tens of millions of years?"

A cataclysmic event of a certain age: "At the end of the Pleistocene period, approximately 12,800 years ago—give or take a few centuries—a cosmic impact triggered an abrupt cooling episode that earth scientists refer to as the Younger Dryas.

New research by UC Santa Barbara geologist James Kennett and an international group of investigators has narrowed the date to a 100-year range, sometime between 12,835 and 12,735 years ago. The team's findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

First measurements taken of South Africa's Iron Age magnetic field history: "A team of researchers has for the first time recovered a magnetic field record from ancient minerals for Iron Age southern Africa (between 1000 and 1500 AD). The data, combined with the current weakening of Earth's magnetic field, suggest that the region of Earth's core beneath southern Africa may play a special role in reversals of the planet's magnetic poles."

Heat release from stagnant deep sea helped end last Ice Age: "The build-up and subsequent release of warm, stagnant water from the deep Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas played a role in ending the last Ice Age within the Arctic region, according to new research."

South American example illustrates Rocky Mountain formation: "New work from an international team of researchers including Carnegie's Lara Wagner improves our understanding of the geological activity that is thought to have formed the Rocky Mountains. It is published by Nature."

Today is the 100th anniversary of the hurricane which gave Galveston, Texas' seawall its first test.

July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded for the globe: "The July average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F (0.81°C) above the 20th century average. As July is climatologically the warmest month for the year, this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880-2015 record, at 61.86°F (16.61°C), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.14°F (0.08°C)."