Stormgasm
Semi-important events that are semi-relevant to meteorology: August 16
1650 - Vincenzo Coronelli is born. He is a well known cartographer and cosmographer.
1906 - An estimated 8.2 magnitude earthquake strikes Valparaíso, Chile. 3,886 people are killed.
1907 - James Hector, a well known Scottish geologist, naturalist, and surgeon, dies. He is most well known for going on the Palliser Expedition, which was a British expedition through the prairies and wilderness of Canada from 1857 to 1860. The purpose was to discover new plant species as well as a possible path for the Canadian Pacific Railway. He also did extensive work in New Zealand.
1957 - Irving Langmuir dies. Originally a chemist, in his later years his interests turned toward meteorology and atmospheric science. He theorized about cloud seeding in that one could, theoretically, introduce dry ice or iodide into a really moist cloud that has a low temperature in order to activate precipitation. The Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research in New Mexico is named after him.
1989 - Trading in the Toronto stock market comes to a stop when a geomagnetic storm created by a solar flare affects micro chips.
Semi-important events that are semi-relevant to meteorology: August 12
1885 - Physicist Jean Cabannes is born. He specialized in optics. He showed how gas molecules diffused light (pure gases can scatter light). He, along with Jean Dufay, calculated the height of the ozone layer. Additionally, he, Daure, and Rocard showed that gases diffusing monochromatic light could also change their wavelength. This is known as The Cabannes-Daure effect.
1953 - A 7.3 magnitude earthquake strikes the Greek islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia.
1960 - NASA successfully launches the communication satellite Echo 1A. This is the first successful launching of communication satellite done by NASA.
In about 8 hours
I’ll be on a bus to Volcano Arenal! It’s going to be so awesome! And then, on Saturday, I’m going to Monteverde Cloud Forest!! This is the place I’m doing most of my climate research on!!
Microbes in the clouds influence weather
Bacteria often leave their hosts feeling under the weather. And even when the hosts are high-altitude parcels of air, microbes can be a source of inclement conditions, a Montana research team finds. Cloudborne bacteria might even pose climate threats by boosting the production of a greenhouse gas, another team proposes.
The above picture shows P. syringae bacteria collected from rain and stained green.
This is definitely a part of what I’m wanting to do for my career. There is a lot more behind what I want to do but I’ll post something about that on a later date.
MIT Open CourseWare →
This is the earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences section of the MIT Online Open CourseWare. It’s pretty great!
