Science
Climate Warms UP Once Again In 2022
DENVER — Last year, the Earth’s fever didn’t go away. It didn’t reach a record high, but government groups say it was still one of the five or six warmest years on record.
Scientists from the US government, on the other hand, say that climate change caused by burning coal, oil, and gas will make the next few years the hottest on record.
Despite a La Nina, a cooling of the equatorial Pacific that somewhat lowers world average temperatures, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 2022’s global average temperature was 14.76 degrees Celsius, placing it sixth on record. Because of data concerns, NOAA still needs to include the polar regions but will do so soon.
If the Arctic, warming three to four times faster, and Antarctica are included, NOAA says it will be the fifth warmest on record. Traditionally including the Arctic in its worldwide estimates, NASA stated that 2022 is tied for the fifth warmest with 2015. Four other scientific institutions or organizations worldwide rank the year as the fifth or sixth hottest on record.
NOAA And NASA Have Records Dating Back To 1880.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated that global warming is “very alarming… What we’re seeing is our warming climate warning us all. The intensity of forest fires is increasing. Hurricanes are becoming more powerful. Droughts are wreaking havoc on the environment. The sea level is rising. Extreme weather patterns endanger our well-being all around the world.”
According to Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit collection of independent scientists, it was the fifth warmest and hottest year for 28 countries, including China, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, and New Zealand.
Another group, whose satellite-based estimations are typically cooler than other science teams, claimed it was the fifth hottest year.
2022’s Climate Was Hotter Than 2021
Last year was slightly hotter than 2021, but scientists believe the real issue is that the last eight years, beginning in 2015, have been a step above the increased temperatures the world has been experiencing. According to NOAA and NASA, the last eight years have been warmer, over 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius), than pre-industrial times. According to NASA, last year was 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than in the mid-nineteenth century.
“The previous eight years have certainly been warmer than the years before,” said Russ Vose, chief of NOAA’s analysis section.
In a human body, an extra 2 degrees Fahrenheit is considered a fever, but Renee McPherson, a University of Oklahoma meteorology professor who was not part of any of the study teams, believes global warming is worse than the equivalent of a planetary fever because fevers can be treated to go away quickly.
“You can’t take a pill for it. Therefore the solutions aren’t simple,” McPherson explained. “It’s more of what you’d call a chronic sickness, like cancer.”
Each Year Will Get Warmer And Warmer
“Every tenth of a degree matters and things break down, and that’s what we’re witnessing,” says Climate Central Chief Meteorologist Bernadette Woods Plucky, comparing the situation to a fever.
The World Meteorological Organization says that it is more likely that the world will warm more each year than the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) limit agreed upon in 2015. According to the United Nations Weather Service, the previous ten years have been 1.14 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial periods. Vose says there is a 50/50 chance that the temperature will briefly reach 1.5 degrees Celsius in the 2020s climate.
Vose and NASA Goddard Institute Director Gavin Schmidt stated that there are indications of an acceleration in warming, but the data isn’t yet solid enough to be certain. However, they claim that the overall warming trend is unbreakable.
“You’ve seen this steady increase in temperature since the mid-1970s, and that’s completely resistant to all the different approaches,” Schmidt said.
La Nina Will Happen More Often
La Nina, a natural phenomenon that affects weather worldwide, is in its third year. Schmidt concluded that the La Nina lowered overall temperatures by around a tenth of a degree (.06 degrees Celsius) last year, even though it was the hottest La Nina year on record.
“The La Nina years of now are not yesterday,” said Kathie Dello, a state climatologist in North Carolina. “In the past, we could count on La Nina to lower the world thermostat. Heat-trapping gases keep the temperature high, ensuring another top-10 warmest year on record.”
With La Nina likely receding and a possible El Nino on the horizon, Schmidt predicts that this year’s climate will be warmer than 2022. And keep an eye out for an El Nino next year.
“That would imply that 2024 would be the warmest year on record by a significant margin,” Schmidt said
Scientists estimate that 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases ends up in the upper 6,561 feet (2000 meters) of the ocean, and numbers released Wednesday suggest that 2022 will be another record year for ocean heat.
“There’s a fairly good connection between the patterns of ocean warming, stratification, and then the weather that we experience in our daily life on land,” a research co-author of the University of St. Thomas said.
Global warming first made news in the United States in 1988, when Schmidt’s predecessor, climate scientist James Hansen, testified about worsening warming. That year would be the warmest on record.
1988 Is Now The 28th Warmest Year On Record.
According to NOAA, the last time the Earth was cooler than the 20th-century average was in 1976.
However, scientists believe that average temperatures do not significantly impact humans and climate. What bothers and upsets people is how global warming makes extreme weather events like heat waves, floods, droughts, and storms harsher, more frequent, or both.
“These trends should concern everyone,” said Natalie Mahowald, a climate scientist at Cornell University who was not part of the study teams.
According to WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, these extremes will “undermine health, food, energy, and water security, as well as infrastructure” in 2022. Large parts of Pakistan were inundated, resulting in significant economic losses and human deaths. Heat waves of unprecedented proportions have been recorded in China, Europe, and North and South America. Long-term drought in the Horn of Africa threatens a humanitarian disaster.
SOURCE – (AP)
Science
A Spacecraft Is On Its Way To A Harmless Asteroid Slammed By NASA In A Previous Save-The-Earth Test
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – A spacecraft launched Monday to probe the site of a cosmic accident.
The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft launched on a two-year trip to the little, harmless asteroid slammed by NASA two years ago as a practice run for the day when a murderous space rock threatens Earth. It’s the second phase of a planetary defense experiment that could one day save the globe.
SpaceX’s Falcon rocket vanished with Hera into the late morning clouds. An hour later, cheering erupted in the control center in Germany as the spacecraft split from the rocket’s upper stage and returned home. “It’s an amazing day,” the space agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, said later.
The 2022 crash of NASA’s Dart spacecraft reduced Dimorphos’ orbit around its larger companion, indicating that if a harmful rock was heading our way, it might be pushed off course with adequate warning.
nasa
A Spacecraft Is On Its Way To A Harmless Asteroid Slammed By NASA In A Previous Save-The-Earth Test
Scientists are eager to analyze the aftermath of the impact up close to determine how effective Dart was and what improvements may be required to protect Earth in the future.
“The more detail we can glean the better as it may be important for planning a future deflection mission should one be needed,” University of Maryland astronomer Derek Richardson stated before launch.
Researchers want to know if Dart (short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test) created a crater or changed the 500-foot (150-meter) asteroid more dramatically. It seemed to be a flying saucer before Dart’s blow and may now resemble a kidney bean, according to Richardson, who participated in the Dart mission and is assisting Hera.
Dart’s wallop sent rubble and boulders hurtling off Dimorphos, adding to the impact’s momentum. For months, the debris track extended thousands of miles (almost 10,000 kilometers) into space.
According to flight director Ignacio Tanco, some rocks and debris may still be hovering about the asteroid, posing a threat to Hera.
A Spacecraft Is On Its Way To A Harmless Asteroid Slammed By NASA In A Previous Save-The-Earth Test
“We don’t really know very well the environment in which we are going to operate,” Tanco informed me. “But that’s the whole point of the mission is to go there and find out.”
European authorities refer to the $400 million (363 million euros) effort as a “crash scene investigation.”
“Hera is going back to the crime scene and getting all the scientific and technical information,” said project manager Ian Carnelli.
Carrying a dozen science instruments, the compact car-sized Hera must swing past Mars in 2025 for a gravitational boost before landing at Dimorphos by the end of 2026. It’s a moonlet of Didymos, the Greek word for twin, a five-times larger asteroid that spins quickly. At that point, the asteroids will be 120 million miles (195 million kilometers) from Earth.
Hera will attempt to enter orbit around the rocky duo, progressively reducing flyby distances from 18 miles (30 kilometers) to a half-mile (1 kilometer). The spacecraft will examine the moonlet for at least six months to determine its mass, shape, composition, and orbit around Didymos.
Before the crash, Dimorphos circled its larger partner from three-quarters of a mile (1,189 meters) away. Scientists believe the orbit has become tighter and more oval-shaped, and that the moonlet may be tumbling.
Two shoebox-sized Cubesats will launch from Hera for even closer drone-like examinations, with one employing radar to peek beneath the moonlet’s boulder-strewn surface. Scientists believe Dimorphos was produced from particles shed by Didymos. The radar measurements should assist in determining whether Didymos is the small moon’s parent.
A Spacecraft Is On Its Way To A Harmless Asteroid Slammed By NASA In A Previous Save-The-Earth Test
After their survey, the CubeSats will attempt to land on the moonlet. If the moonlet tumbles, the situation will become more complicated. Hera may potentially conclude its mission with a perilous touchdown but on the bigger Didymos.
Asteroids, which are remnants of the solar system’s origin 4.6 billion years ago, circle the sun principally between Mars and Jupiter in what is known as the main asteroid belt, where millions of them live. When they fall from the belt and land in our area, they become near-Earth objects.
NASA now has around 36,000 near-Earth objects, the majority of which are asteroids, although there are also some comets. More than 2,400 of them are deemed potentially dangerous to the Earth.
SOURCE | AP
NEW YORK — Prepare to spot a rare and dazzling comet.
The space rock is hurling toward Earth from the far reaches of the solar system and will make its closest approach on Saturday. It should be visible through the end of October, assuming clear skies.
A Rare Comet Brightens The Night Skies In October
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas should be visible to the naked eye, but binoculars and telescopes will provide a clearer view.
“It’ll be this fuzzy circle with a long tail stretching away from it,” explained Sally Brummel, planetarium manager at the Bell Museum in Minnesota.
What is a comet?
They are frozen remains from billions of years ago when the solar system was formed. They heat up as they swing toward the sun, revealing their distinctive streaming tails.
In 2023, a green one that had last visited Earth 50,000 years ago flew past again. Other significant flybys were Neowise in 2020 and Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s.
Where did Tsuchinshan-Atlas come from?
Also known as C/2023 A3, was found last year and named after the observatories in China and South Africa that spotted it.
It originated in the Oort Cloud, which extends far beyond Pluto. After making its closest approach to Earth at 44 million miles (71 million kilometers), it will not return for another 80,000 years, provided it survives the journey.
A Rare Comet Brightens The Night Skies In October
Every year, several comets are detected, but many of them burn up near the sun or are too far away to be observed without special equipment, according to Larry Denneau, a key researcher with the Atlas telescope that helped discover it.
How to View
Those seeking to see Tsuchinshan-Atlas should go outside about an hour after sunset on a clear night and look to the west.
The comet should be visible from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
SOURCE | AP
NEW YORK — To save power, NASA turned off another scientific equipment on its long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft.
NASA Switches Off Instrument On the Spacecraft To Save Power
The space agency announced on Tuesday that 2’s plasma science instrument, meant to study the movement of charged atoms, was turned off in late September to allow the spacecraft to continue exploring for as long as possible, which is estimated to be into the 2030s.
NASA turned off a suite of instruments on Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, after exploring the gas giant planets in the 1980s. Both are currently in interstellar space or the region between stars. The plasma instrument on Voyager 1 stopped working years ago and was finally shut off in 2007.
The remaining four instruments on 2 will continue to collect data on magnetic fields and particles. Its mission is to investigate the regions of space beyond the sun’s protective sphere.
NASA Switches Off Instrument On Voyager 2 Spacecraft To Save Power
It launched in 1977, is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune. It is now more than 12 billion miles (19.31 billion kilometers) from Earth. 1 is more than 15 billion miles (24.14 billion kilometers) beyond Earth.
SOURCE | AP
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