On 27th May, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission published "FCC Kickstarts a Proceeding that Could Unlock More than 20,000 Megahertz of Spectrum for High-Speed Internet Delivered from Space". (https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-looks-unleash-more-spectrum-satellite-spectrum-abundance) Some of it is a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and other parts are a Further NPRM. This proceeding has not been released in the Federal Register, so we don't yet know when comments and reply comments are due.

The Commission seeks comment on expanding satellite connectivity across four spectrum bands: 12.7-13.25 GHz, 42.0-42.5 GHz, 51.4-52.4 GHz, and the so-called "W-band" at 92.0-94.0 GHz, 94.1-100 GHz, 102.0-109.5 GHz, and 111.8-114.25 GHz. It covers a number of bands and certainly touches on areas of concern to both #RadioAstronomy and #AtmosphericScience.

Inside Hail Formation

Conventional wisdom suggests that hailstones form over the course of repeated trips up and down through a storm, but a new study suggests that formation method is less common than assumed. Researchers studied the isotope signatures in the layers of 27 hailstones to work out each stone’s formation history. They found that most hailstones (N = 16) grew without any reversal in direction. Another 7 only saw a single period when upwinds lifted them, and only 1 of the hailstones had cycled down-and-up more than once. They did find, however, that hailstones larger than 25mm (1 inch) in diameter had at least one period of growth during lifting.

So smaller hailstones likely don’t cycle up and down in a storm, but the largest (and most destructive) hailstones will climb at least once before their final descent. (Image credit: D. Trinks; research credit: X. Lin et al.; via Gizmodo)

#atmosphericScience #fluidDynamics #iceFormation #meteorology #physics #science #thunderstorm

☁️ ❄️ EPFL atmospheric and climate scientists show that biological particles may induce rain events that could contribute to flooding and snowstorms, owing to their ability to precipitate ice formation in clouds. They call for an update of meteorological and climate models.

#ClimateScience #AtmosphericScience #ClimateModels

Read more: https://go.epfl.ch/UGG-en

Climate Change and the Equatorial Cold Tongue

A cold region of Pacific waters stretches westward along the equator from the coast of Ecuador. Known as the equatorial cold tongue, this region exists because trade winds push surface waters away from the equator and allow colder, deeper waters to surface. Previous climate models have predicted warming for this region, but instead we’ve observed cooling — or at least a resistance to warming. Now researchers using decades of data and new simulations report that the observed cooling trend is, in fact, a result of human-caused climate changes. Like the cold tongue itself, this new cooling comes from wind patterns that change ocean mixing.

As pleasant as a cooling streak sounds, this trend has unfortunate consequences elsewhere. Scientists have found that this cooling has a direct effect on drought in East Africa and southwestern North America. (Image credit: J. Shoer; via APS News)

#atmosphericScience #climateChange #fluidDynamics #oceanography #physics #planetaryScience #science

Playful Martian Dust Devils

The Martian atmosphere lacks the density to support tornado storm systems, but vortices are nevertheless a frequent occurrence. As sun-warmed gases rise, neighboring air rushes in, bringing with it any twisted shred of vorticity it carries. Just as an ice skater pulling her arms in spins faster, the gases spin up, forming a dust devil.

In this recent footage from the Perseverance Rover, four dust devils move across the landscape. In the foreground, a tiny one meets up with a big 64-meter dust devil, getting swallowed up in the process. It’s hard to see the details of their crossing, but you can see other vortices meeting and reconnecting here. (Video and image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/INTA-CSIC/Space Science Institute/ISAE-Supaero/University of Arizona; via Gizmodo)

#atmosphericScience #conservationOfAngularMomentum #dustDevils #fluidDynamics #Mars #physics #science #vorticity

Inside an Alien Atmosphere

Studying the physics of planetary atmospheres is challenging, not least because we only have a handful of examples to work from in our own solar system. So it’s exciting that researchers have unveiled our first look at the 3D structure of an exoplanet‘s atmosphere.

Using ground-based observations, researchers studied WASP-121b, also known as Tylos, an ultra-hot Jupiter that circles its star in only 30 Earth hours. One face of the planet always faces its star while the other faces into space. The team found that the exoplanet has a flow deep in the atmosphere that carries iron from the hot daytime side to the colder night side. Higher up, the atmosphere boasts a super-fast jet-stream that doubles in speed (from an estimated 13 kilometers per second to 26 kilometers per second) as it crosses from the morning terminator to the evening. As one researcher observed, the planet’s everyday winds make Earth’s worst hurricanes look tame. (Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser; research credit: J. Seidel et al.; via Gizmodo)

#astronomy #atmosphericScience #exoplanets #fluidDynamics #physics #planetaryScience #science

Atmospheric Rivers Raise Temperatures

Atmospheric rivers are narrow streams of moisture-rich air running from tropical regions to mid- or polar latitudes. Though relatively short-lived, they are capable of carrying — and depositing — more water than the largest rivers. But researchers have found that their impact is not measured in water content alone. Instead, a survey of 43 years’ worth of data shows that atmospheric rivers also bring unusually warm temperatures. In some cases, the authors found surface temperatures near an atmospheric river climbed to as high as 15 degrees Celsius above the typical. On average, temperatures were about 5 degrees Celsius higher than expected for the region’s climate.

Several factors raise those temperatures — like the heat released when rising vapor meets cooler air and condenses into liquid — but the biggest effect came from carrying warm tropical temperatures to (usually) cooler regions. (Image credit: L. Dauphin/NASA; research credit: S. Scholz and J. Lora; via Physics Today)

#atmosphericRiver #atmosphericScience #fluidDynamics #meteorology #physics #science #weather

🚨 Call for #Editors- Atmosphric Chemstry and Physics!

Are you passionate about advancing #atmosphericscience and supporting open peer review?

ACP is expanding its editorial board and looking for new editors!
Apply now by 30 April 2025!

👉 Learn more and apply here: https://egu.eu/063LXS/

Job - Alert 🌱

RESEARCH SCIENTIST (F_M_X) ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Deadline: 2025-03-23
Location: Germany, Potsdam, Brandenburg

Apply: https://www.academiceurope.com/job/?id=6994

#hiring #EnvironmentalScience #AtmosphericScience #geoecology #Meteorology #NaturalScience #Physics

2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season (Vertical Mode)

#Atlantic #AtlanticHurricaneSeason #AtlanticOcean #Atmosphere #AtmosphericPhenomena #Atmosphericscience #CoastalProcesses #EarthScience

⏩ 2 new pictures and 2 new videos from NASA (SVS) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles?limit=10&user=OptimusPrimeBot&ilshowall=1&offset=20250312130433

X2.0 flare from Active Region 14001 - February 23, 2025

#Atlantic #AtlanticHurricaneSeason #AtlanticOcean #Atmosphere #AtmosphericPhenomena #Atmosphericscience #CoastalProcesses #Corona

⏩ 3 new pictures and 3 new videos from NASA (SVS) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles?limit=16&user=OptimusPrimeBot&ilshowall=1&offset=20250312130433

An Exoplanet’s Supersonic Jet Stream

WASP-127b is a hot Jupiter-type exoplanet located about 520 light-years from us. A new study of the planet’s atmosphere reveals a supersonic jet stream whipping around its equatorial region at 9 kilometers per second. For comparison, our Solar System’s fastest winds, on Neptune, are a comparatively paltry 0.5 kilometers per second. The team estimates the speed of sound — which depends on temperature and the atmosphere’s chemical make-up — on WASP-127b as about 3 kilometers per second, far below the measured wind speed. The planet’s poles, in contrast, are much colder and have far lower wind speeds.

Of course, these measurements can only give us a snapshot of what the exoplanet’s atmosphere is like; we don’t have altitude data, for example, to see how the wind speed varies with height. Nevertheless, it shows that exoplanets beyond our planetary system can have some unimaginably wild weather. (Video and image credit: ESO/L. Calçada; research credit: L. Nortmann et al.; via Gizmodo)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcY1vxbKjO0

#astronomy #atmosphericScience #exoplanets #fluidDynamics #physics #planetaryScience #science #supersonic

For my master thesis I want to code a tracer module. A tracer is a subroutine in an atmospheric models which traces particles or droplets of different density than the surrounding flow, like ozone or similar gases. Currently I want to answer the following questions:
- Why is it important to model trace gases in the atmosphere in general?
- Why is it done in DNS (Direct numerical simulation)?
- What kinds of aerosols/droplets etc. are commonly modeled?
- What is the different between active and passive tracers?

#science #atmosphere #AtmosphericScience

Peering Inside a Hailstone

In spring and summer, major thunderstorms can include dangerous and destructive hailstones. In Catalonia, a group of scientists collected hailstones after a record-breaking 2022 storm, finding some as large as 12 centimeters across. Using a dentist’s CT scanner, they looked at the interior of the hailstones, uncovering layers that reveal how the hail grew. In the past, researchers have studied hail by slicing the ice; that method gives them only a single cross-section through the hailstone, which gets destroyed in the process. In contrast, a CT scan revealed the full interior of the ice.

The scientists found that, even though hail often appears spherical, the nucleus of the hail is not always located in the center. They saw that the hail grew in uneven layers that varied in density, depending on the storm conditions the hail experienced. To get to the enormous sizes seen here, hailstones have to travel up and down repeatedly through a storm, building up layer by layer. From the hail’s interior structure, the team could also tell what orientation the hail took its final fall in; the ice along the bottom of the hailstone was bubble-free, indicating that it collected as water drops hit the surface and froze. (Image credit: T. Ribas; research credit: C. Barqué et al.; via New Scientist)

#atmosphericScience #fluidDynamics #iceFormation #meteorology #physics #science #thunderstorm

📢 Don’t miss SciX’s Edwin Henneken at #AMS2025 Session J2B!

🗓️ Mon, Jan 13, 2025 | ⏰ 11:15 AM
📍 Room 355, New Orleans

Discover how SciX advances #OpenScience in Atmospheric Research with unified data and literature access.

Details: https://ams.confex.com/ams/105ANNUAL/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/452100

#FAIRData #AtmosphericScience

Revealing Gravity Waves

Severe weather — like thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes — can push air upward into a higher layer of the atmosphere and trigger gravity waves. Aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) instrument captures these waves by looking for variations in the brightness of Earth’s airglow (above). Recently, when Hurricane Helene hit the southeastern United States, AWE caught a series of gravity waves some 55 miles up, pushed by the storm (below). It’s incredible to see these long-ranging ripples spreading far beyond the heart of the storm. (Video credits: NASA Goddard and Utah State University)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYbgtqs7djQ

#atmosphericScience #fluidDynamics #gravityWaves #hurricanes #physics #science

Lovely cloudspotting on Mars yesterday, by the Curiosity rover

See these clouds drifting in the following three videos!

Credits images: NASA/JPL-Caltech

#Mars #Curiosity #clouds #Sol4393 #CuriosityRover #skyphotography #photography #video #science #STEM #Astrodon #space #Martian #Atmosphere #AtmosphericScience #meteo #meteorology #weather #planetaryscience #cloud #cloudspotting #cloudphotography

A Day in the Life of GeoXO 🌎

#Atmosphere #AtmosphericPhenomena #Atmosphericscience #Earth #EarthScience #Environmentalscience #GOES #GeostationaryOrbit

▶️ 1 new video from NASA (SVS) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Day_in_the_Life_of_GeoXO_%28SVS14740%29.webm

Beneath a River of Red

A glowing arch of red, pink, and white anchors this stunning composite astrophotograph. This is a STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) caused by a river of fast-moving ions high in the atmosphere. Above the STEVE’s glow, the skies are red; that’s due either to the STEVE or to the heat-related glow of a Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc. Find even more beautiful astrophotography at the artist’s website and Instagram. (Image credit: L. Leroux-Géré; via APOD)

#astronomy #atmosphericScience #aurora #fluidDynamics #magnetohydrodynamics #physics #planetaryScience #science #STEVE

Wave Clouds in the Atacama

Striped clouds appear to converge over a mountaintop in this photo, but that’s an illusion. In reality, these clouds are parallel and periodic; it’s only the camera’s wide-angle lens that makes them appear to converge.

Wave clouds like these form when air gets pushed up and over topography, triggering an up-and-down oscillation (known as an internal wave) in the atmosphere. At the peak of the wave, cool moist air condenses water vapor into droplets that form clouds. As the air bobs back down and warms, the clouds evaporate, leaving behind a series of stripes. You can learn more about the physics behind these clouds here and here. (Image credit: Y. Beletsky; via APOD)

#atmosphericScience #cloudFormation #condensation #fluidDynamics #internalWaves #leeWaves #meteorology #physics #science #waveClouds