Wildfires burning in the West hazardous air quality

• Many factors are causing Western wildfires to grow bigger and to generate larger, longer-lasting smoke plumes that can stretch across the continent. The multi-institutional team tracked and flew through wildfire plumes from the source to collect data on how the chemical composition of smoke changed over time.Wildfires are getting larger and more frequent, and smoke is becoming a more important contributor to overall air pollution.
• Knowing how newly generated wildfire smoke transitions to stale, dissipated smoke could lead to better forecasts for air quality. Communities can use those forecasts to prepare by moving outdoor activities inside or rescheduling in cases where the air will be unsafe to be outdoors.”There are two aspects that go into smoke forecasts,” said first author Brett Palm, a UW postdoctoral researcher in atmospheric sciences. One is just where is the smoke plume going to go, based on dynamics of how air moves in the atmosphere. But the other question is: How much smoke gets transported — how far downwind is air quality going to be bad. When trees, grass and foliage burns at high temperatures they generate soot, or black carbon, as well as organic particles and vapors, called organic aerosols, that are more reactive than soot. Fires can also produce “brown carbon” aerosol, a less-well-understood form of organic aerosol that gives skies a brownish haze.

• The researchers found that one class of wildfire emissions, phenols, make up only 4% of the burned material but about one-third of the light-absorbing “brown carbon” molecules in fresh smoke. They found evidence of complex transformations within the plume: Vapors are condensing into particles, but at the same time and almost the same rate, particulate components are evaporating back into gases. The balance determines how much particulate matter survives, and thus the air quality, as the plume travels downwind.
• Changes to chemical composition happen faster than expected. As soon as the smoke is in the air, even as it’s moving and dissipating, it starts to evaporate and react with the surrounding gases in the atmosphere. When smoke plumes are fresh, they’re almost like a low-grade extension of a fire, because there’s so much chemical activity going on in those first few hours,” Thornton said. Understanding the composition of the smoke could also improve weather forecasts, because smoke cools the air underneath and can even change wind patterns.

(Images/video taken from google/IE)

Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn

• In the complex dance of the cosmos, two celestial bodies are about to partner up. Jupiter and Saturn often look far apart — two separate specks puncturing different parts of the night sky. But later this month, the two largest planets in the solar system will come so close to each other that they may appear to be overlapping, creating a kind of “double planet” that has not been visible since the Middle Ages.
• The once-in-a-lifetime sight is the product of an astronomical event known as a “conjunction,” in which two objects line up with each other in the sky. When it involves Jupiter and Saturn catching up to each other, it’s sometimes called a “great conjunction.”
• While Jupiter and Saturn will be separated on Dec. 21 by 0.1 degrees, or less than a third of the moon’s width, the two planets will nonetheless remain separated by about 450 million miles in space. The two planets came equally close in 1623, but that phenomenon was impossible to see from Earth because of glare from the sun. So the conjunction later this month will be an extraordinarily rare event.
• Since the summer, Jupiter and Saturn have been getting closer to one another, often visible at dusk, low in the western sky. Right around the solstice, they may appear as one overlapping body above the horizon.The next conjunction will be visible in 2080, according to projections from Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/03/2020-great-conjunction-rare-christmas-star-jupiter-saturn-align/3808185001/

(Images/video taken from google/IE)

Spectacular Hole Punch Clouds Appear Over Spokane, Washington; British Columbia

• These rare cloud formations develop in altocumulus cloud layers; those cloud decks forming in the mid-levels of the troposphere, and are often the result of airplanes passing through the layer of clouds.
• The altocumulus cloud layer is composed of small water droplets that are below freezing called supercooled water droplets. If ice crystals can form in the layer of supercooled droplets, they will grow rapidly and shrink or possibly evaporate the droplets completely.
• Studies have shown that aircraft passing through these cloud layers can trigger the formation of the heavier ice crystals, which fall to earth and then leave the circular void in the blanket of clouds. They concluded that aircraft propellers and wings cause the formation of those initial ice crystals. There are zones of locally low pressure along the wing and propeller tips which allow the air to expand and cool well below the original temperature of the cloud layer, forming ice crystals.

https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/hole-punch-clouds-spotted-over-b-c-skies-1.4272844

(Images/video taken from google/IE)

Current climate crisis

• Ocean temperatures are rising, too, hitting a high in 2019 as well, and increasing faster than previously estimated. The changes over just the last few decades are stark, making plain that the planet’s climate is warming and that it’s human activity behind the temperature rise.
• Global warming impacts everyone’s food and water security. Climate change is a direct cause of soil degradation, which limits the amount of carbon the earth is able to contain. Some 500 million people today live in areas affected by erosion, while up to 30 per cent of food is lost or wasted as a result.
• Climate crisis is a term describing global warming and climate change, and their consequences. The term has been used to describe the threat of global warming to the planet, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation. Increased heat, drought and insect outbreaks, all linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns.
• Five recent developments from around the world which may actually help to mitigate the risks of climate change. US Green New Deal. The end of Australian coal mines. Increase in sustainable goods. Changing food industry and War on plastic.
• COUNTRIES MOST AFFECTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE: JAPAN (Climate Risk Index: 5.5) PHILIPPINES (Climate Risk Index: 11.17) GERMANY (Climate Risk Index: 13.83) MADAGASCAR (Climate Risk Index: 15.83) INDIA (Climate Risk Index: 18.17) SRI LANKA (Climate Risk Index: 19) KENYA (Climate Risk Index: 19.67) RUANDA (Climate Risk Index: 21.17).

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-effects/

(Images/video taken from google/IE)

Cloud weight

• 1 cubic kilometer (km³⁾ cloud contains 1 billion cubic meters. That is about 500,000 kilograms or 1.1 million pounds (about 551 tons).
• Summer cumulus clouds vary in size, but a typical one would be about one kilometre across and about the same tall. This means we can consider it to be a cube, with each side measuring 1km across. That means our cloud is 1,000 x 1,000 x 1,000 cubic metres in size – and this makes 1 billion cubic metres.
• Clouds form when the invisible water vapour in the air condenses into visible water droplets or ice crystals. Nothing happens if we inhale a cloud. Clouds are formed of fine water vapour suspended in air.
• Cumulonimbus (from Latin cumulus, “heaped” and nimbus, “rainstorm”) is a dense, towering vertical cloud, forming from water vapor carried by powerful upward air currents.
• At the upper reaches of the troposphere you’ll find high clouds, which, depending on geographic location, occur between roughly 10,000 and 60,000 feet. Below that is the home of mid-level clouds, which generally occur between 6,000 and 25,000 feet.
• Clouds form when warm wet air rises and condenses in cold air. Water droplets in air behave the same way as dust. The second reason that clouds can float in the air is that there is a constant flow of warm air rising to meet the cloud: the warm air pushes up on the cloud and keeps it afloat.
• Before the rain begins, one of the first odors you may notice as winds pick up and clouds roll in is a sweet, pungent zing in your nostrils. That’s the sharp, fresh aroma of ozone—a form of oxygen whose name comes from the Greek word ozein (to smell).
• When we see grey clouds, they have a large concentration of water droplets, says Associate Professor Lane. Although most clouds look light and fluffy, they are in fact highly turbulent with very strong air currents within them and an enormous mass of suspended water.
• Just as oil floats on water because it is less dense, clouds float on air because the moist air in clouds is less dense than dry air.

https://youtu.be/MqV7jG0MAKo

(Images/video taken from google/IE)