Another view of Colorado wildfires

wildfire complex in Colorado, the West Fork Complex (http://tinyurl.com/puyhnc4). It turned out that just after we shared that post…NASA decided to taunt us by saying “we have a much better image”. 

I’m not sure what it is about images from the Space Station, but somehow the combination of photography and the angle makes them seem incredibly real and vibrant. Here therefore is another look at the wildfires burning in Colorado taken from the International Space Station on June 19.

You can clearly see the enormous pyroclumulus cloud formed from the West Fork Complex fire spreading out over the southern part of this image. A smaller cloud from a fire burning to the north is also visible.

A pyrocumulus cloud is a type of cloud associated with events like fires and volcanic eruptions. The cloud itself is formed when the heat given off by the fire forces the air above the hotspot to rise up into the atmosphere, carrying particulate matter such as ash with it. The clouds from this fire have been large and continuous enough to negatively impact air quality across the Eastern U.S. for the last several weeks.

Image credit: NASA/EO:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=81485

Recent TES coverage of pyrocumulus clouds:
https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/528211067239942

Gletschergarten

This picture looks rather ordinary, just a hole in the ground with a couple of rocks. However, if you look into the story of how this hole was formed, you find an Earth story from the Ice Age, around 20,000 years ago.

This is a pothole in the Glacier Gardens (Gletschergarten), Lucerne, Switzerland. During the Ice Age, this area was covered by the Reuss glacier. The potholes found throughout the park were created by the strong force of the water as the glaciers melted. The water initially melted on the surface, then seeped through cracks and fissures. The flowing water below the glacier was under intense pressure. As it gained speed, vortices formed and carved large potholes into the sandstone below. The largest pothole in the park is about 9.5 meters deep and 8 meters across.

Josef Wilhelm Amrein-Troller discovered the area in 1872 while digging for a wine cellar. After finding some small potholes, he consulted two geologists who recognized the evidence for Ice Age glaciation. They encouraged Josef to stop blasting the area and preserve the site. Careful excavation began, and a park was opened in 1873.

The sandstone in the park is filled fossils of palm trees and clam shells. Around 20 million years ago, the climate of the Lucerne area was subtropical, with sandy beaches and tropical trees.


References:

http://www.erikburd.org/skiing/engelberg/ggarden/

http://www.gletschergarten.ch/Garden.4.0.html?&L=2

Image of a 4-meter-deep pothole, Gletschergarten, Switzerland. Credit Roland Zh
Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luzern_Gletschergarten_4.04.02_03.jpg

EARTH’S SKY FROM ABOVE

Taking a page from Col. Chris Hadfield’s interaction with social media whilst aboard the International Space Station, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano is using Twitter to share photographs he takes from the ISS. Parmitano is aboard the ISS for six months, with five other astronauts. 

Parmitano was born in Paternò, Italy and considers Catania his hometown. He arrived at the ISS on May 29, 2013, as part of the Volare mission; volare means "to fly" in Italian.

Parmitano captures his images from 400 km high, looking out of the Station’s Cupola while orbiting at 28,800 km/h. He tweeted this image on June 22 with the comment: “The sky is simply perfect. La semplice perfezione del cielo.” Earth’s curvature can clearly be seen in this image.

All of Parmitano’s photos are available here:http://bit.ly/12oZM31. You can follow him on Twitter here https://twitter.com/astro_luca and Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/AstronautLucaParmitano.


http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/A_perfect_sky
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Astronauts/Luca_Parmitano
Image copyright: ESA

Atmospheric aerosols may act to slow climate change

Aerosols are are tiny dust or liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere and air that can be both natural and man-made. Ranging from the ash of a volcano to the particles spewed by burning fossil fuels, numerous scientific studies have discovered that these aerosols actually slow global warming, contrary to prior belief.

It is important to distinguish between aerosols and the commonly referred to greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane. Greenhouse gases act as a sort of gaseous, one-way passage blanket that envelops the earth. Meanwhile, the liquid and solid aerosols suspended in the air act as both mirrors and "seeds for cloud formation", affecting global warming both directly and indirectly.

Aerosols can reflect and shoot the sun's radiation rays away from the Earth, and can also gather water in the atmosphere to create clouds. The bigger these clouds are in quantity and size (thickness), more light rays are scattered and less heat is absorbed by the earth.

Studies in and/or by Nature Geoscience, the UK Met Office, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and other organizations have all asserted this as a very likely to be true observation.

"No question about it, they have a cooling effect" says Stephen Schwartz, an environmental senior scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The brief explanation is this: Hurricanes are formed by the raw energy absorbed and released by the ocean. When a higher quantity of aerosols act to reflect much of the sun's rays, there is less heat by the ocean to be absorbed. Nevertheless, it is far too common to think that the number of hurricanes fluctuates based on climate change. Aerosols are simply predicted to decrease the intensity of these already heightened-intensity hurricanes.

This is not to say, however, that aerosols are 100% beneficial to the welfare of the human race by the diminishment of the hurricane's destructive power. During the last 2 to 3 decades, significant improvements in human health have been seen by the clean up and decrease in hazardous industrial aerosols.

For this reason, it is a difficult decision for me to label the presence or absence of aerosols as "better" than one another. This is because studies and observations are quite qualitative on both sides. For example, it is difficult to determine the quantifiable amount of human life loss due to human induced aerosol pollution. At the same time, environmental scientists maintain that while this relationship is a step forward, aerosols reducing global warming is a "perplexing variable" because of the lack of quantifiable data.

Nevertheless, this new discovery truly is a breakthrough. Further studies can hopefully uncover details and quantifiable aspects of this observation in the hopes of bettering planet Earth.


Image Credit: Colorado State University

References:

http://phys.org/news/2013-06-man-made-particles-affect-hurricane-frequency.html

http://scienceline.org/2007/04/environment-cooper-aerosols/

LA FORTUNA, COSTA RICA—THE TOWN THAT LIVED

Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica is a 1,657 meter-tall stratovolcano that has shown decreased activity since October 2010. However, in the past, this volcano was quite active. On July 27, 1968, Arenal erupted after a 400 to 500 year dormant period. Prior to the explosion, Arenal was known as Arenal Peak, since it was thought to be a mountain. In the months leading up to the 1968 explosion, the people living in the region surrounding the volcano noticed some warning signs, including ground movement, especially the night before the explosion. People who climbed Arenal noticed that the rocks making up the volcano were hot for some time. Fumaroles, or vents from which hot steam escapes, were noted on the volcano as well. However, at the time, there was no elaborate warning system set up, nor were there volcano experts in the area. As a result, residents who lived near Arenal were not necessarily aware of the impending danger.

Arenal exploded from its western side at approximately 7:30 in the morning. When the eruption occurred, farming communities that were located near the slopes of the volcano were destroyed. The three small villages of Tabacón, Pueblo Nuevo, and San Luís were decimated when 15 square kilometers surrounding the volcano were buried with rocks, ash, and lava over 232 square kilometers of land. Unfortunately, 87 people lost their lives during this destruction that lasted several days. Rocks weighing several tons were thrown more than a kilometer away from the volcano at a rate of 600 meters per second at the height of the eruption.

The town of La Fortuna (translated to mean “The Fortune”) was spared from the devastation, but people were still evacuated from the small village. As a result, La Fortuna was deserted for many months after the 1968 eruption. Some people eventually returned to the town, but many residents did not. When I was in La Fortuna, I noticed that Arenal looms not too far off in the distance, and it is plain to see why people were hesitant to return. However, La Fortuna has now become a tourist destination specifically due to its proximity to the volcano.

Because of this fateful tragedy in 1968, residents who want to live near the volcano do not build their homes very close to the site. I visited Arenal in July 2012, and I was not able to hike past a certain point as a safety precaution. Even though the eruption ended in tragedy for the community, the volcano has brought in millions of tourists to this region of Costa Rica. As a result, tourism is vital to this area.


Photo of Arenal as seen from La Fortuna courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/photo_gallery/cs/photo_gallery_B1_cs_5.html)

References:
http://www.fortunawelcome.com/arenal-volcano/

http://travelcostaricanow.com/index.php/The_Town_of_La_Fortuna_-_Arenal_Volcano_Area

http://www.tabacon.com/pdfs_items/089_580EB8A2-BC1C-44A4-999CA2C9D77483F0.pdf

http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=22

http://www.arenal.net/arenal-volcano-overview.htm

http://www.arenal.net/arenal-volcano-1968-eruption.htm

http://www.arenal.net/

http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/fumaroles.htm

For more information on Arenal, please see:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=493023807425335&set=a.487272311333818.1073741829.352857924775258&type=3&theater

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Metro in the Desert: Utah’s Zion Subway Tunnel

For those daring enough to venture nine miles through deep canyon and desert landscape, here is a must-see. The Zion Subway, located in Zion National Park, is nestled in the desert-ridden terrain of southwest Utah. The tunnel is named after its similar appearance to urban subway tunnels; however there is no direct correlation between the two. The Zion Subway tunnel has been carved from the Left Fork of North Creek where churning water sculpts the tunnel between two peaks called North and South Guardian Angels. In order to reach this majestic and incredibly unique landscape, hikers must first trek through 14.5 km-15.28 km (9-9.5 miles) of trails, canyons, and small river beds, but the payoff is most definitely worth the adventure.

Within the hollowed out sandstone, rivers and pools of water are met with little sunlight; conditions that allow algae to flourish and turn the water into its greenish/turquoise hue. Careful to be too lured in by the algae though, as it also coats much of the surrounding sediment, making for a slippery obstacle to dance around while hiking. Other wildlife within the tunnel includes an abundant population of dragonflies, frogs, lizards, and some species of birds. In fact, the surrounding Zion National Park is home to more than 270 species of birds, including the infamous roadrunner.

As beautiful as the Zion Subway may be, caution must be taken when hiking through, as conditions in the tunnel are known to escalate quickly. Danger from flash-floods, extreme heat, and hypothermia does put adventurists at risk but shouldn’t deter everyone from venturing into the Zion Subway tunnel. Although the hike may require extensive preparation and training, the payoff of visiting one of the desert’s best kept secrets is well worth while.


Photo Credit:
Christian Bothner, National Geographic

References:
1. http://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm
2. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/zion-photos/
3. http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/visitor-info/geology/
4. http://www.nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/southwest-desert-trails.htm
5. http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-national-park-subway.htm

Laacher See

This placid seeming lake in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in western Germany was once the site of an enormous eruption that spewed ash all over west and central Europe, reaching the British Isles and northern Spain. On a summer day, families will be picnicking by and people sailing on its blue waters, with little thought of the violent events that occurred nearly 13,000 years ago. The large Plinian eruption is estimated to have had a volcanic explosivity index of 6/8 (same as Mt. Pinatubo in 1991), leaving a 2Km caldera behind.

Known as maars, these bowl shaped craters form when groundwater meets rising lava, resulting in an explosion. The tuff rings from surge deposits are clearly visible at the crater's rim, now covered in forest. The eruption occurred in early summer, and the initial ash plume is thought to have risen up to 35Km high. Phreato-magmatic explosions then created pyroclastic flows and surges, that filled all the valleys with tephra within a 10Km radius, and probably wiped out most life within a circle of 50Km. They estimate around 6.5 cubic kilometres of lava were erupted. The resultant deposits are used as marker beds to correlate stratigraphy by geologists and archaeologists throughout west-central Europe.

The deposits also dammed the nearby Rhine, creating a 140 square Km lake. When the dam broke a huge flood surged downstream, leaving evidence of its passing as far north as Bonn. The phonolitic (high alkali/medium-high silica) lava had a high sulphur content, which cooled the atmosphere for several years afterwards, so the next few summers would have been pretty miserable. Among the deposits are ejecta of rare intrusive carbonatite lavas, the youngest plutonic carbonatites worldwide, attesting to some pretty complex geochemistry churning down below. Human culture was set back, as the local communities disappeared, and were replaced some years later by less advanced ones (in terms of tool quality and the like, not necessarily culture).

It is the only caldera in central Europe, as the magma chamber underneath collapsed after emptying. Located on the Rhine Graben (a downfaulted block resulting from extensional tectonics), the magma is probably related in some complex way to the collision of Africa and Europe, that also built the Alps and Pyrenees. Part of the East Eifel volcanic field, these sporadic eruptions have been ongoing for several million years, and their timing seems to correlate with the cyclic accumulation and melting of ice sheets.

The field is still active, lava is gently bubbling down below, as thermal anomalies under the lake and degassing of CO2 into the region's lakes (including Laachersee) and rivers testify. Some rare minerals were formed by this volcanism, and Hauyne was first identified in these German volcanic fields. While still active, there are no current signs of imminent eruption, and the British newspaper the Daily Mail was forced to retract a story last year that a super-eruption that would devastate Europe was imminent.

A Benedictine monastery lies on its shores (visible at the lower left of the photo), and the tuff was quarried for centuries as building stones and to make querns for grinding corn.


Image credit: IMAGE BROKER/IMAGO/SIPA


http://sims.ess.ucla.edu/akschmitt/Schmitt_etal_2010.pdf
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/laacher_see.html
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/daily-mail-required-to-remove-laacher-see-eruption-fearmongering/

Fuji-San awarded world heritage status

Japan's highest peak (3776m), central to its legends and culture and famously depicted in paintings by Hokusai was awarded UNESCO world heritage status today. Dormant since 1708, this perfect stratovolcano sits 100Km from Tokyo and overlies several of its ancestors. The current edifice is about 10,000 years old, has a complex geology and is located at a triple plate junction between the Okhotsk, Amur and Philippine plates.


Image credit: Alpsdake

http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/fuji.html

FEMA Flood map budget slashed

From Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Sandy, the U.S. has seen some incredible disasters due to flooding over the last decade. Of course, as shown in this somewhat-ironic photo from a flood earlier this year in Indiana, flooding doesn’t just occur during massive hurricanes, it occurs regularly throughout the country and the world.

In the United States, flood damages are insured by a program run by the U.S. government, the National Flood Insurance Program. This program was established by law in 1968. Prior to that, flood insurance was provided by some homeowner’s insurance policies, but it was difficult for insurers to appropriately assess the risk of floods in many areas since they didn’t have high-quality maps of flood-prone areas. After taking losses on those policies, most insurance policies stopped covering flood damage.

When those policies stopped covering flood damage, floods still happened and people’s homes were still destroyed. If insurers weren’t covering the damage, the government could either step in and do something or leave people whose insurance didn’t cover the damage out on the street. This situation gave rise to The Flood Insurance Act of 1968 and the Flood Disaster Prevention Act of 1973, which established the National Flood Insurance Program and then made participation mandatory for property in special flood hazard areas.

Thus, today, it’s the government who provides flood insurance in the U.S. However, the flood insurance program right now is in dire fiscal straits; after hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the program is more than $20 billion in debt and is not taking in enough money to cover the growing losses.

A major cause of this problem is underestimating the risks of flood damage. It should be clear that accurate maps of flood zones are absolutely necessary to run a flood insurance program. That’s why the private insurers got out of the business in the first place; they didn’t have the money to make accurate assessments of flood risks across the entire country.

The U.S. government has the resources to map these areas. The zones required to buy flood insurance and the premiums required for various structure types can be based on national data if the areas are well mapped. In some places, that is the case, but across much of the country it isn’t, and that problem is getting worse

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the agency tasked with preparing for and responding to disasters, is in the process of updating maps of flood-prone areas around the country. For example, flood maps for areas in New York were just released a couple days ago. FEMA was in the process of updating flood maps for areas in New York and New Jersey last year just as Sandy hit; more complete documents are slowly coming out now.

In many areas, the flood maps are hopelessly out of date. Some places haven’t been updated since the 1970’s. Re-mapping these areas is the only way that the flood insurance program will be able to set premiums, and it’s the only way people will be able to construct houses with appropriate levels of flood defenses. Basically, if these areas aren’t re-mapped, then the U.S. taxpayer will continue to be on the hook for costs from floods that weren’t understood. The taxpayers can basically choose; map the areas and let the maps guide building, or pay much larger settlements to rebuild areas that were destroyed by flooding.

Right now, the U.S. government is choosing the latter; paying much larger amounts of money to rebuild. FEMA’s flood mapping budget has been slashed the last 2 years; Congress authorized FEMA to spend $400 million a year to update their flood maps in 2012, a level of money which could complete the mapping nationwide in 5 to 10 years and which is small compared to the Flood Insurance Program’s losses on Hurricane Sandy alone. In 2011, the government was spending ~$200 million a year on this mapping project, so that money would have helped complete it more rapidly.

Despite being told to spend more money on the mapping program, the funding to do so has evaporated. FEMA’s flood-mapping budget in 2012 was slashed back to $99 million and is continuing to fall. Thanks to sequestration, an automatic series of budget-cuts enacted by Congress impacting every federal agency, the budget for 2014 only includes ~$84 million in flood-mapping funds.

That rate of funding will allow the government to complete its new flood assessments in about 40 years. Of course, in 40 years, land use changes and sea level rise will make many of these new assessments out of date as well, just as they are now.

This program is going to be paid for whether the taxpayer wants to or not. Either the U.S. is going to update these maps to allow for appropriate building and insurance premium payments, or the taxpayer will pay larger claims when flood damage happens. The taxpayer is on the hook either way.

Worse, the lack of updated maps is harming the rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy. Property owners in flood-prone areas need to know what the assessment of flood-risk is in order to determine the level they can build at. Does a rebuild house need to be raised above the water level? Can property safely be built on a site or is flooding too likely? The results of the new mappings in New York and New Jersey are slowly becoming available, but with the budget cuts, it will be months, possibly years before those maps are finalized, and until then, rebuilding may just have to wait.


Image Credit: FOX 59 Indiana, Flood from earlier this year:
http://fox59.com/2013/04/19/your-pictures-of-indiana-flooding-from-april-19-2013/danville-flooding/

Flood Maps for Rockland County, New York released:
http://newcity.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/fema-flood-elevation-maps-release-helps-property-owners

FEMA statement from 2012 on impact of budget cuts on mapping program:
http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/703622-house-appropriations-hearing-march-1-2012#document/p312/a103963

State of Flood Insurance Program and FEMA funding, press report, used specifically to get current budget numbers:
http://www.propublica.org/article/as-need-for-new-flood-maps-rises-congress-and-obama-cut-funding

FEMA Records on 1968 and 1973 Flood Insurance Acts:
http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=2216

Tatun volcanoes, Taipei

The capital of Taiwan, Taipei, sits close to the convergence of three tectonic plates - the Eurasian, Phillipine Sea and South China Sea plates. The Eurasian and Phillipine Sea plates are rapidly colliding at more than 8 cm per year. The high and narrow mountain range that runs north to south along Taiwan (a landmark of Formosa - the beautiful island) is one consequence. Volcanism is another.

The Tatun volcanoes shown here are located within the Taipei metropolitan area, 15km north of the capital and west of Keelung. Known to have been active through the Pleistocene epoch of the Quaternary, they have long been assumed to be extinct, but recent studies suggest they may simply be dormant, with hot springs, fumaroles, and swarm-type seismicity all suggestive of magma still present beneath. Although forming beautiful mountains, more than 1000m above the nearby sea level, these volcanoes may pose a yet-unrecognised threat to the nearby population of more than 6.7 million people. In view of the potential volcanic threat, some have also raised questions about the suitability of the area as host for the two nuclear power stations sited close by.


Image: Tatun volcanoes, credit: James Ko Chun Huang, Dept. of Earth Sciences, NCKU, Tainan Taiwan

http://tao.cgu.org.tw/pdf/v163p563.pdf
http://tao.cgu.org.tw/pdf/v163p579.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL022861/abstract