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Global Warming - Blog Posts
nobody is talking about this, the government is doing shit about it and this is some of the worst natural disaster coverage I've seen in Mexico. The people on Acapulco claim to not be receiving help from the government and the people trying to go to help claim to be turned back by the military.
The idiot we call president had the audacity of thanking god because "there weren't many casualties" when as far as we know the city was destroyed.
It's very likely that Otis was so bad because of global warming so we will see shit like this more and more often and is so fucking scary
⚠️ IMPORTANT AND SERIOUS MESSAGE ⚠️
Hi I don’t care if you don’t live in Mexico please reblog this I have not seen anyone talk about it on here only on tiktok but Mexico got hit with a huge and unexpected category five hurricane (without proper warning or preparation) in Acapulco (an area with around 1 million people) on October 25th and the government is not allowing media coverage. 27 people have died so far.
⚠️ UN MENSAJE MUY IMPORTANTE Y SERIO ⚠️ Repite este mensaje incluso si no vives en México
El 25 de octubre Acapulco (un zona que tiene un millión de personas) fue azotada por un huracán categoría 5 sin la debida advertencia del medios. El gobierno no permite que los medios cubran la historia. 27 personas han muerto hasta el momento.
You can inform yourself donate (puedes aprender donar aquí) here:
Hurricane Otis Recovery
y
GoFund Me
I don’t have access to my family who is in contact with people in Mexico but I can post this please reblog it
i like actually can’t believe people are denying global warming still because it’s currently 46 degrees (f) in alaska in DECEMBER which is like actually fucking crazy because this is like, march april weather. it hasn’t snowed in weeks and i can see the pavement in the neighborhood streets. this is not normal weather and our planet is screaming at us to stop and to help it and we continue to ignore it.
Eh just thought I might post something so here ya go
I know it’s fall for real now cuz the floors in my house stay consistently cold. And the west coast doesn’t exactly conform to cool weather often, especially with Global warming ducking up the whole ecosystem and weather system, whatever word that is.
Ah I remember when Colorado used to be chilly this time of year.
But then all the bitches wanna say is “ohhh but global warming its right there in the name!!! Shouldn’t it be getting hotteer!!!?” LIKE SHUT UP GO PICK UP A SCIENCE TEXTBOOK FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE AND READ FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY
So many people don’t even know the difference between climate change and the fucking weather
So many people do not understand the relationship between climate change and cold weather.
So many people do not understand the relationship between climate change and cold weather.
Maybe I am just overreacting. Maybe it is just British weather. But I just can't shake this feeling of doubt and concern. The weather has been getting more and more extreme each year too. Sure, I've always known it was important and dangerous, but I've never felt this way about climate change before, and it's starting to concern me.
Reminder that the climate crisis is NOT your fault.
Not your litter or lack of recycling
Not your emissions
It is not your fault that you are embedded in a system and forces you to drive a car
Its not your fault that massive corporations are destroying the world and blaming you
Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite
As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.
Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.
NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!
Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.
Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.
While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.
In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.
Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.
With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.
Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.
Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.
Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.
The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.
With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.
PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.
It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.
With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.
Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!
Six Answers to Questions You’re Too Embarrassed to Ask about the Hottest Year on Record
You may have seen the news that 2023 was the hottest year in NASA’s record, continuing a trend of warming global temperatures. But have you ever wondered what in the world that actually means and how we know?
We talked to some of our climate scientists to get clarity on what a temperature record is, what happened in 2023, and what we can expect to happen in the future… so you don’t have to!
1. Why was 2023 the warmest year on record?
The short answer: Human activities. The release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere trap more heat near Earth’s surface, raising global temperatures. This is responsible for the decades-long warming trend we’re living through.
But this year’s record wasn’t just because of human activities. The last few years, we’ve been experiencing the cooler phase of a natural pattern of Pacific Ocean temperatures called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This phase, known as La Niña, tends to cool temperatures slightly around the world. In mid-2023, we started to shift into the warmer phase, known as El Niño. The shift ENSO brought, combined with overall human-driven warming and other factors we’re continuing to study, pushed 2023 to a new record high temperature.
2. So will every year be a record now?
Almost certainly not. Although the overall trend in annual temperatures is warmer, there’s some year-to-year variation, like ENSO we mentioned above.
Think about Texas and Minnesota. On the whole, Texas is warmer than Minnesota. But some days, stormy weather could bring cooler temperatures to Texas while Minnesota is suffering through a local heat wave. On those days, the weather in Minnesota could be warmer than the weather in Texas. That doesn’t mean Minnesota is warmer than Texas overall; we’re just experiencing a little short-term variation.
Something similar happens with global annual temperatures. The globe will naturally shift back to La Niña in the next few years, bringing a slight cooling effect. Because of human carbon emissions, current La Niña years will be warmer than La Niña years were in the past, but they’ll likely still be cooler than current El Niño years.
3. What do we mean by “on record”?
Technically, NASA’s global temperature record starts in 1880. NASA didn’t exist back then, but temperature data were being collected by sailing ships, weather stations, and scientists in enough places around the world to reconstruct a global average temperature. We use those data and our modern techniques to calculate the average.
We start in 1880, because that’s when thermometers and other instruments became technologically advanced and widespread enough to reliably measure and calculate a global average. Today, we make those calculations based on millions of measurements taken from weather stations and Antarctic research stations on land, and ships and ocean buoys at sea. So, we can confidently say 2023 is the warmest year in the last century and a half.
However, we actually have a really good idea of what global climate looked like for tens of thousands of years before 1880, relying on other, indirect ways of measuring temperature. We can look at tree rings or cores drilled from ice sheets to reconstruct Earth’s more ancient climate. These measurements affirm that current warming on Earth is happening at an unprecedented speed.
4. Why does a space agency keep a record of Earth’s temperature?
It’s literally our job! When NASA was formed in 1958, our original charter called for “the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.” Our very first space missions uncovered surprises about Earth, and we’ve been using the vantage point of space to study our home planet ever since. Right now, we have a fleet of more than 20 spacecraft monitoring Earth and its systems.
Why we created our specific surface temperature record – known as GISTEMP – actually starts about 25 million miles away on the planet Venus. In the 1960s and 70s, researchers discovered that a thick atmosphere of clouds and carbon dioxide was responsible for Venus’ scorchingly hot temperatures.
Dr. James Hansen was a scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, studying Venus. He realized that the greenhouse effect cooking Venus’ surface could happen on Earth, too, especially as human activities were pumping carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.
He started creating computer models to see what would happen to Earth’s climate as more carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere. As he did, he needed a way to check his models – a record of temperatures at Earth’s surface over time, to see if the planet was indeed warming along with increased atmospheric carbon. It was, and is, and NASA’s temperature record was born.
5. If last year was record hot, why wasn’t it very hot where I live?
The temperature record is a global average, so not everywhere on Earth experienced record heat. Local differences in weather patterns can influence individual locations to be hotter or colder than the globe overall, but when we average it out, 2023 was the hottest year.
Just because you didn’t feel record heat this year, doesn’t mean you didn’t experience the effects of a warming climate. 2023 saw a busy Atlantic hurricane season, low Arctic sea ice, raging wildfires in Canada, heat waves in the U.S. and Australia, and more.
And these effects don’t stay in one place. For example, unusually hot and intense fires in Canada sent smoke swirling across the entire North American continent, triggering some of the worst air quality in decades in many American cities. Melting ice at Earth’s poles drives rising sea levels on coasts thousands of miles away.
6. Speaking of which, why is the Arctic – one of the coldest places on Earth – red on this temperature map?
Our global temperature record doesn’t actually track absolute temperatures. Instead, we track temperature anomalies, which are basically just deviations from the norm. Our baseline is an average of the temperatures from 1951-1980, and we compare how much Earth’s temperature has changed since then.
Why focus on anomalies, rather than absolutes? Let’s say you want to track if apples these days are generally larger, smaller, or the same size as they were 20 years ago. In other words, you want to track the change over time.
Apples grown in Florida are generally larger than apples grown in Alaska. Like, in real life, how Floridian temperatures are generally much higher than Alaskan temperatures. So how do you track the change in apple sizes from apples grown all over the world while still accounting for their different baseline weights?
By focusing on the difference within each area rather than the absolute weights. So in our map, the Arctic isn’t red because it’s hotter than Bermuda. It’s red because it’s gotten relatively much warmer than Bermuda has in the same time frame.
Want to learn more about climate change? Dig into the data at climate.nasa.gov.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Confirmed: Summer 2023 Hottest in NASA’s Record
All three months of summer 2023 broke records. July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded, and the hottest July. June 2023 was the hottest June, and August 2023 was the hottest August.
NASA’s temperature record, GISTEMP, starts in 1880, when consistent, modern recordkeeping became possible. Our record uses millions of measurements of surface temperature from weather stations, ships and ocean buoys, and Antarctic research stations. Other agencies and organizations who keep similar global temperature records find the same pattern of long-term warming.
Global temperatures are rising from increased emissions of greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide and methane. Over the last 200 years, humans have raised atmospheric CO2 by nearly 50%, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels.
Drivers of climate change, both natural and human-caused, leave distinct fingerprints. Through observations and modeling, NASA researchers confirm that the current warming is the result of human activities, particularly increased greenhouse gas emissions.
How Climate Change Showed Up in 2021
2021 was tied for the sixth-hottest year since modern record keeping began. We work together with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to track temperatures around the world and study how they change from year to year.
For decades, the overall global temperature has been increasing because of human activities. The last decade has been the warmest on record. Each individual year’s average temperature, however, can be affected by things like ocean circulation, volcanic eruptions, and specific weather events.
For instance, last year we saw the beginning of La Niña – a pattern of cooler waters in the Pacific – that was responsible for slightly cooling 2021’s average temperature. Still, last year continued a long-term trend of global warming.
Globally, Earth’s temperature in 2021 was nearly 2°F warmer than the late 19th Century, for the seventh year in a row.
The Record
Studying 142 Years
Since 1880, we can put together a consistent record of temperatures around the planet and see that it was much colder in the late-19th century. Before 1880, uncertainties in tracking global temperatures are larger. Temperatures have increased even faster since the 1970s, the result of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Tracking Millions of Individual Observations
Our scientists use millions of individual observations of data from more than 20,000 weather stations and Antarctic research stations, together with ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, to track global temperatures.
Reviewing Multiple Independent Records
Our global temperature record – GISTEMP – is one of a number of independent global temperature records, all of which show the same pattern of warming.
The Consequences
Everywhere Experiences Climate Change Differently
As Earth warms, temperature changes occur unevenly around the globe. The Arctic is currently warming about four times faster than the rest of the planet – a process called Arctic amplification. Similarly, urban areas tend to warm faster than rural areas, partly because building materials like asphalt, steel and concrete retain heat.
Droughts and Floods in Warmer Weather
More than 88% of the Western US experienced drought conditions in 2021. At the same time, communities in Western Europe saw two months’ worth of rain in 24 hours, breaking records and triggering flash floods. Because a hotter climate means more water can be carried in the atmosphere, areas like the Western US suffer drought from the increased 'thirstiness' of the atmosphere, while precipitation events can become more extreme as the amount of moisture in the atmosphere rises.
Sea Levels Continue to Rise
Melting ice raises sea levels around the world, as meltwater drains into the ocean. In addition, heat causes the ocean water to expand. From 1993 to today, global mean sea level has been rising around 3.4 millimeters per year. In 2021, sea level data from the recently launched NASA/ESA Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission became available to the public.
There is Hope
“This is not good news, but the fact that we are able to track this in real time and understand why it’s changing, and get people to notice why it’s changing and how we can change things to change the next trajectory, that gives me hope. Because we’re not in the dark here. We’re not the dinosaurs who are unaware the comet is coming. We can see the comet coming, and we can act.” – Dr. Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA GISS, where the global temperature record is calculated
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Our Eyes in the Sky See Toxic Waters
Warm summer temperatures often lead to dangerous blooms of phytoplankton in lakes, reservoirs and along our coastlines. These toxin-containing aquatic organisms can sicken people and pets, contaminate drinking water, and force closures at boating and swimming sites.
In this image, a severe bloom of toxic blue-green algae is spreading across the western half of Lake Erie. Taken on July 30, 2019 by the Operational Land Imager on our Landsat 8 satellite, this image shows green patches where the bloom was most dense and where toxicity levels were unsafe for recreational activities. Around the time of this image, the bloom covered about 300 square miles of Lake Erie’s surface, roughly the size of New York City. By August 13, the bloom had doubled to more than 620 square miles. That’s eight times the size of Cleveland.
The dominant organism—a Microcystis cyanobacteria—produces the toxin microcystin, can cause liver damage, numbness, dizziness, and vomiting. On July 29, 2019, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported unsafe toxin concentrations in Lake Erie and have since advised people (and their pets) to stay away from areas where scum is forming on the water surface.
You can stay informed about harmful algal blooms using a new mobile app that will send you alerts on potentially harmful algal blooms in your area. Called CyAN, it's based on NASA satellite data of the color changes in lakes and other bodies of water. It serves as our eye-in-the-sky early warning system, alerting the public and local officials to when dangerous waters may be in bloom.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
A persistent heatwave has been lingering over parts of Europe, setting record high temperatures and turning typically green landscapes brown.
The United Kingdom experienced its driest first half of summer (June 1 to July 16) on record.
These images, acquired by our Terra satellite, show the burned landscape of the United Kingdom and northwestern Europe as of July 15, 2018, compared with July 17, 2017.
Peter Gibson, a postdoctoral researcher at our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, examined how rising global temperatures are linked to regional heatwaves. “If the globe continues to warm, it’s clear we will continue to see events like this increasing in frequency, severity and duration,” Gibson said. “We found that parts of Europe and North America could experience an extra 10 to 15 heatwave days per degree of global warming beyond what we have seen already.”
Read more HERE.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Schools: environmental education and computer games in learning
Why is school important for teaching kids about climate change and how can our game help with that?
Everything children learn at school allows them to, one day, choose the future they want to live in. Schools also teach children how to put themselves to the test. The child strives to achieve a goal and is rewarded based on what has been done. In this way they understand that no goal is achieved without their commitment. Additionally, it is at school that the child lays the foundations to define the adult he/she will one day become.
The importance of environmental education
Children and young people have a growing awareness of the threat that climate change represents for our world and for their future, as demonstrated in recent months by the youth movement for the climate born thanks to Greta Thunberg. These children, if properly educated and prepared, can play a really important role in the fight against the environmental crisis as they would be able to influence the decisions of their parents. According to the study Children can foster climate change concern among their parents, published by a group of sociologists and ecologists from North Carolina state university in the journal Nature Climate Change.
This new study reveals that educating children about the dangers of climate change raises their parents' concerns about the environmental emergency. According to the researchers, environmental education in schools, especially about the climate, is essential to raise awareness among young people and, consequently, their parents. "There is a large body of work showing that children can influence parental behavior and positions on environmental and social issues - said one of the authors of the study, Danielle Lawson - but this is the first experimental study showing that climate education for children increases parents' concern about climate change ”. The fact that children are able to influence adults can be explained by the banal adage that children are the voice of truth. The perception of climate change in the very young would be particularly credible since, unlike adults, they are less susceptible to the influence of the common worldview or political context. Thanks to the candor of their vision, children would be able to inspire adults and increase their concern about the ongoing climate crisis, triggering an intergenerational learning process.
To carry out the experimental study, the researchers worked with 238 students, aged between 10 and 14, and 292 parents. All of these people were initially tested to measure their levels of concern about climate change. After that some of these kids (166) took a course on climate change, while the rest did not. The study found an increase in environmental concerns in both groups, but "much more pronounced in the families of the children who took the course," said Danielle Lawson.
The advantages of computer games in learning
Climate change is one of the huge global problems young children will have to tackle in their near future . They will have to be creative thinkers in a globalized world having to work together with other people from different countries, cultures and realities. Computer games can help them with this (As Shaffer writes in his book about How Computer Games Help Children Learn). They can help young children learn to think like scientists, engineers, urban planners, journalists, lawyers, and other innovative professionals, giving them the tools they need to survive in a changing world. Studies show that playing video games encourages critical thinking, improves motor skills and enhances key social skills like leadership and team building. They're also effective tools for teaching educational skills like algebra, biology and coding, as gaming helps to deepen learning and understanding. In the science classroom for example where our game would fit in perfectly, computer games can present unique opportunities for teachers and students, as they involve activities of observation, interpretation, simulation, inference, prediction, hypothesis, classification, and communication (Lowe, 1988). Computer games can make the scientific inquiry process more engaging for kids by providing a rich and interactive environment that challenges them to solve a complex problem in a meaningful context and enables them to gather information and evidence from multiple sources using authentic tools (An, 2015). Computer games give students the special opportunity to learn by doing and help them develop transferable knowledge and skills by allowing them to practice newly learned skills in a variety of situations.
Deny.
Carbonated Cloth Currency Act of 1021
Preamble
Whereas the climate crisis is a threat to the survival of the human race,
Whereas carbon dioxide (hereafter CO2) is a major contributor to climate change,
Whereas the sovereign nation of Fabrica is committed to reducing its CO2 emissions in an exuberant and engaging manner that attracts citizen cooperation and compliance,
Whereas the sovereign nation of Fabrica upholds its fine tradition of craftsmanship in clothmaking colorfully embraced in every nook and corner of its streets, halls and dwellings and unparalleled anywhere outside its hidden universe,
Now, therefore, be it enacted by the Parliament of Fabrica as follows:
Section 1. Definitions
For the purposes of this Act:
"Currency" means any of the following: silken threads, linen linings, wool wovens, fabulous fabrics, tasseled tokens, striped scrip, embroidered notes, quilted quarters, or patchwork pennies.
"Counterfeit" means to make or to possess with intent to use or sell a counterfeit currency.
Section 2. Physical Characteristics of Currency
(1) All physical currency in Fabrica shall be made of nanolattice materials that have captured CO2 from the atmosphere.
(2) The physical characteristics of the different denominations of currency in Fabrica shall be as follows:
Silken threads are made from the finest silk and are woven into intricate patterns. They are about the size of a sewing thread. They are made up of bands of colors.
Linen linings are made from the finest linen and are woven into a simple weave. They are about the size of a postage stamp and are colored off-white.
Wool wovens are made from the finest wool and are woven into a simple weave. They are colored brown.
Fabulous fabrics are made from a variety of fabrics, including silk, linen, and wool. They are made up of a mix of colors.
Tasseled tokens are made from small pieces of fabric that are tied together with a tassel. They are made up of a mix of colors.
Striped scrip is made from small pieces of fabric that are striped in different colors. They are made up of a mix of colors.
Embroidered notes are made from small pieces of fabric that are embroidered with intricate designs. They are made up of a mix of colors.
Quilted quarters are made from small pieces of fabric that are quilted together in a square pattern. They are made up of a mix of colors.
Patchwork pennies are made from small pieces of fabric that are patched together in a random but consistent pattern. They are made up of a mix of colors.
(3) The government of Fabrica shall establish standards for the size, composition, and design of each denomination of currency. These standards shall ensure that the denomination of currency is durable and easy to identify. The government shall ensure that all denominations of currency meet their corresponding standards.
(4) Any currency that does not meet the physical characteristics in subsection (1), (2) or (3) is not legal tender.
Section 3. Denominations of Currency
The following shall be the denominations of currency and their relative worths in Fabrica:
Silken threads: 100 linen linings, 1,000 wool wovens, or 10,000 fabulous fabrics.
Linen linings: 10 wool wovens or 100 fabulous fabrics.
Wool wovens: 10 fabulous fabrics.
Fabulous fabrics: 10 tasseled tokens, 100 striped scrip, or 1,000 embroidered notes.
Tasseled tokens: 10 striped scrip or 100 embroidered notes.
Striped scrip: 10 embroidered notes.
Embroidered notes: 10 quilted quarters.
Quilted quarters: 10 patchwork pennies.
Patchwork pennies: Lowest denomination.
Section 4. Right to Issue Currency
(1) The right to issue currency shall be vested only in the Central Bank of Fabrica (hereafter Central Bank).
(2) The Central Bank shall issue currency in such quantities as it deems necessary to meet the needs of the economy.
(3) The Central Bank shall sell currency to the public at prices proportionate to the value of the CO2 capture that they represent.
(4) Only undefaced currency issued by the Central Bank and retaining all CO2 within is legal tender in Fabrica.
Section 5. Exchange of Currency
Currency may be exchanged for other denominations of currency at any bank or licensed currency exchange.
Section 6. Counterfeiting, Defacing and Destroying
It is an offense to counterfeit, deface or destroy currency. The following deterrents take into account both monetary and environmental implications of unauthorized acts to currency.
(1) Any person who counterfeits currency shall be punished by a fine of not more than 5,000 silken threads or imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both.
(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1) and in lieu of the sentence therein, any person whose counterfeit currency is not made from CO2 shall be punished by a fine of not more than 10,000 silken threads or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both.
(3) Any person who defaces currency shall be punished by a fine of not more than one and a half times the sum of the value of the currency and the value of any CO2 released as a result of the defacement.
(4) Any person who destroys currency shall be punished by a fine of not more than thrice the value of the currency or imprisonment for not more than 2 years, or both.
Section 7. Severability
If any provision of this Act is held to be invalid, the remainder of this Act shall remain in full force and effect.
Section 8. Complementarity
This Act does not preclude the recognition of any intangible national currency to be issued, stored, processed, transferred and exchanged using analytical engines in the future.
Section 9. Effective Date
This Act shall take effect immediately.
Supplementary Note
Although this Act has not been inspired or influenced by any person or other sentient entity, real or imaginary, citizens may refer to the corpus kdrama laws – Abandon all logic, ye who enter here for astoundingly witty, exemplary lawmaking dating back to an era preceding the advent of generative analytical engine intelligence.
Passed by the Parliament of Fabrica on this day of 20.
Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite
As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.
Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.
NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!
Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.
Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.
While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.
In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.
Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.
With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.
Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.
Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.
Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.
The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.
With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.
PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.
It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.
With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.
Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!
We sure have been experiencing this around here. Not only has it affected temperatures, but the percentage of time the sky is cloudy. Our observatory takes images and hosts events less often in part because of the conditions of our sky.
So many people do not understand the relationship between climate change and cold weather.
Six Answers to Questions You’re Too Embarrassed to Ask about the Hottest Year on Record
You may have seen the news that 2023 was the hottest year in NASA’s record, continuing a trend of warming global temperatures. But have you ever wondered what in the world that actually means and how we know?
We talked to some of our climate scientists to get clarity on what a temperature record is, what happened in 2023, and what we can expect to happen in the future… so you don’t have to!
1. Why was 2023 the warmest year on record?
The short answer: Human activities. The release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere trap more heat near Earth’s surface, raising global temperatures. This is responsible for the decades-long warming trend we’re living through.
But this year’s record wasn’t just because of human activities. The last few years, we’ve been experiencing the cooler phase of a natural pattern of Pacific Ocean temperatures called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This phase, known as La Niña, tends to cool temperatures slightly around the world. In mid-2023, we started to shift into the warmer phase, known as El Niño. The shift ENSO brought, combined with overall human-driven warming and other factors we’re continuing to study, pushed 2023 to a new record high temperature.
2. So will every year be a record now?
Almost certainly not. Although the overall trend in annual temperatures is warmer, there’s some year-to-year variation, like ENSO we mentioned above.
Think about Texas and Minnesota. On the whole, Texas is warmer than Minnesota. But some days, stormy weather could bring cooler temperatures to Texas while Minnesota is suffering through a local heat wave. On those days, the weather in Minnesota could be warmer than the weather in Texas. That doesn’t mean Minnesota is warmer than Texas overall; we’re just experiencing a little short-term variation.
Something similar happens with global annual temperatures. The globe will naturally shift back to La Niña in the next few years, bringing a slight cooling effect. Because of human carbon emissions, current La Niña years will be warmer than La Niña years were in the past, but they’ll likely still be cooler than current El Niño years.
3. What do we mean by “on record”?
Technically, NASA’s global temperature record starts in 1880. NASA didn’t exist back then, but temperature data were being collected by sailing ships, weather stations, and scientists in enough places around the world to reconstruct a global average temperature. We use those data and our modern techniques to calculate the average.
We start in 1880, because that’s when thermometers and other instruments became technologically advanced and widespread enough to reliably measure and calculate a global average. Today, we make those calculations based on millions of measurements taken from weather stations and Antarctic research stations on land, and ships and ocean buoys at sea. So, we can confidently say 2023 is the warmest year in the last century and a half.
However, we actually have a really good idea of what global climate looked like for tens of thousands of years before 1880, relying on other, indirect ways of measuring temperature. We can look at tree rings or cores drilled from ice sheets to reconstruct Earth’s more ancient climate. These measurements affirm that current warming on Earth is happening at an unprecedented speed.
4. Why does a space agency keep a record of Earth’s temperature?
It’s literally our job! When NASA was formed in 1958, our original charter called for “the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.” Our very first space missions uncovered surprises about Earth, and we’ve been using the vantage point of space to study our home planet ever since. Right now, we have a fleet of more than 20 spacecraft monitoring Earth and its systems.
Why we created our specific surface temperature record – known as GISTEMP – actually starts about 25 million miles away on the planet Venus. In the 1960s and 70s, researchers discovered that a thick atmosphere of clouds and carbon dioxide was responsible for Venus’ scorchingly hot temperatures.
Dr. James Hansen was a scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, studying Venus. He realized that the greenhouse effect cooking Venus’ surface could happen on Earth, too, especially as human activities were pumping carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.
He started creating computer models to see what would happen to Earth’s climate as more carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere. As he did, he needed a way to check his models – a record of temperatures at Earth’s surface over time, to see if the planet was indeed warming along with increased atmospheric carbon. It was, and is, and NASA’s temperature record was born.
5. If last year was record hot, why wasn’t it very hot where I live?
The temperature record is a global average, so not everywhere on Earth experienced record heat. Local differences in weather patterns can influence individual locations to be hotter or colder than the globe overall, but when we average it out, 2023 was the hottest year.
Just because you didn’t feel record heat this year, doesn’t mean you didn’t experience the effects of a warming climate. 2023 saw a busy Atlantic hurricane season, low Arctic sea ice, raging wildfires in Canada, heat waves in the U.S. and Australia, and more.
And these effects don’t stay in one place. For example, unusually hot and intense fires in Canada sent smoke swirling across the entire North American continent, triggering some of the worst air quality in decades in many American cities. Melting ice at Earth’s poles drives rising sea levels on coasts thousands of miles away.
6. Speaking of which, why is the Arctic – one of the coldest places on Earth – red on this temperature map?
Our global temperature record doesn’t actually track absolute temperatures. Instead, we track temperature anomalies, which are basically just deviations from the norm. Our baseline is an average of the temperatures from 1951-1980, and we compare how much Earth’s temperature has changed since then.
Why focus on anomalies, rather than absolutes? Let’s say you want to track if apples these days are generally larger, smaller, or the same size as they were 20 years ago. In other words, you want to track the change over time.
Apples grown in Florida are generally larger than apples grown in Alaska. Like, in real life, how Floridian temperatures are generally much higher than Alaskan temperatures. So how do you track the change in apple sizes from apples grown all over the world while still accounting for their different baseline weights?
By focusing on the difference within each area rather than the absolute weights. So in our map, the Arctic isn’t red because it’s hotter than Bermuda. It’s red because it’s gotten relatively much warmer than Bermuda has in the same time frame.
Want to learn more about climate change? Dig into the data at climate.nasa.gov.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Mini sunflower
Mini sunflowers opened.
What is happening here??
Global warming?
Covid-19?
Or, the Olympic games?
Interestingly, the others at different place were actually MINI.
I wish I had a much bigger Lab where we can quickly compare their gene expression patterns.
A student says “It would be fun if we could do the experiment as a summer research project”, which encourages me a lot.
One day..
ミニひまわり
「ミニひまわり」が咲きました。
ミニ？ ミニ？ Mini? (*≧∀≦*)
一体どうなってるの？
地球温暖化？
コロナ？
オリンピック？
不思議なことに別の場所に植えたものは、確かに「ミニひまわり」でした。
気軽に遺伝子パターンを比較てきるくらいのラボにしたいものです。
「それが夏休みの自由研究だったら楽しい！」と言ってくれる子がいるのは、励みになります。
いつの日か、、
Mini girasol
Mini girasoles abiertos.
¿¿Que está sucediendo aquí??
¿Calentamiento global?
¿COVID-19?
¿O, los Juegos Olímpicos?
Curiosamente, los otros en diferentes lugares eran en realidad MINI.
Ojalá pudiera tener un laboratorio mucho más grande donde podamos comparar sus patrones de expresión genética.
Un alumno dice "Sería divertido si pudiéramos hacer el experimento como un proyecto de investigación de verano", lo que me anima mucho.
Time is Ticking...
Haven't we all though?
