July 25th, 2012

Signs of global warming have hit Greenland hard this year, with 97 percent of the ice sheet surface experiencing thawing by July 12, according to NASA.

Satellites revealed extensive, sudden surface melting in Greenland in mid-July 2012 (Image: NASA)

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June 8th, 2012

For the first time, scientists have discovered extensive blooms of phytoplankton under Arctic Ocean ice, contradicting the widely held conviction that such blooms could not occur under sea ice that blocked the sun’s rays from triggering the blooms. Sci…

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April 11th, 2012

NASA has developed a system capable of growing large amounts of algae for biofuel production within a network of floating plastic bags, an innovation its developers say could ultimately produce a new fuel source. By pumping wastewater and carbon dioxid…

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March 21st, 2012

A new NASA map of temperature anomalies recorded across the U.S. in mid-March illustrates just how unusual the recent stretch of warm weather has been, particularly in Midwestern states where thousands of
Click to enlarge
NASA
U.S. temperature anoma…

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November 18th, 2011

Galaxies learned to “go green” early in the history of the universe, continuously recycling immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements to build successive generations of stars stretching over billions of years, according to the Space Telescope Science Institute

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August 25th, 2011

Hurricane Irene, which has been battering Caribbean islands for days as it heads toward the US, has become so massive, it’s diameter is nearly one-third the size of the Eastern Seaboard, according to NASA.

The space agency released this satellite photo, showing Irene threatening Florida and Tropical Depression 10, forming in the far Eastern Atlantic.

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August 25th, 2010

Solar power may be emerging as a legitimate source of energy, but as always, the devil is in the details. Sure, it’s great to have an area the size of 50 football fields gathering up the sun’s rays…but who’s going to keep all those panels dirt and dust-free and optimizing their potential? In a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, a group of scientists presented a possible solution: Self-dusting solar panels, based on technology developed for missions to Mars.

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August 5th, 2010

July 2010 was the second hottest July in the 32-year history of charting temperatures by satellite, according to preliminary records kept by the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The global average temperature was only 0.03 C cooler than the record set in July 1998, said Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center

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May 11th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

NASA satellite photography captured the BP oil slick, now in its third week, from space.

The slick has been said to have a surface area greater than Maryland; and even though experts continue to debate how devastating or unprecedented it will or won’t be, it is a prominent feature in the gulf, where it’s is visible as a thick, gray hook-shaped feature.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center based in Greenbelt, Md., reports that the slick is directly south of the Mississippi/Alabama borders, southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi.

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April 21st, 2010

Image: nasa.gov

Many Americans believe a renewed United States effort in space exploration could yield a timely benefit: Increasing understanding of climate change.

That was one of the findings from a recent independent “space poll” conducted by the Everett Group, an opinion and market research organization located just outside Washington, D.C. In the days before President Barack Obama’s speech vowing continued commitment to explore the solar system and land astronauts on Mars, Everett surveyed 1,200 randomly selected adults by land line and cell phone.

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February 26th, 2010

Global warming skeptics have had a field day lampooning reported irregularities in data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — concluding that climate change is essentially a hoax. But NASA has just released dramatic images, some of which date back almost a decade, that stand as compelling evidence that the impact that humans have on our environment is having a profound impact on not only our weather patterns, but on the planet as well.

From floods and droughts to heat waves and ice melt, NASA says the impact of a warming world is being manifested ways that are clearly documented by its satellite cameras in space. These images are published with the permission of NASA. You can see a larger image on the NASA site by clicking the image:

Image taken on April 12, 2009 by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite. (Photo: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team)

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a thick slab of ice on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Since 2008, it has experienced several breakups. NASA says the ice began to rapidly retreat in February and in May another breakup occurred. Fresh cracks appeared on the shelf in late November 2008 and by the beginning of 2009, a narrow ice bridge was all that remained to connect the ice shelf to ice fragments fringing nearby Charcot Island. NASA reports that bridge gave way in early April 2009. This image was taken just days after the ice bridge rupture. “Since ice reflects light from the sun, as polar ice caps melt, less sunlight gets reflected into space,” NASA says. “It is instead absorbed by the ocean and land, increasing surface heat budgets and fueling further melting.”

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February 25th, 2009

By John DeFore
Green Right Now

Environmental scientists were to have a new set of eyes starting this week, thanks to a brand new satellite intended to help make sense of carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere.

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