Latest news with #CooperativeInstituteforResearchintheAtmosphere
Mercury
29-05-2025
- Climate
- Mercury
Tropical Storm Alvin Brews Over Pacific Ocean
Satellite imagery captured Tropical Storm Alvin, the first named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season, brewing over the ocean near Mexico on Thursday, May 29. This imagery released by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) shows convection burbling over the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. The storm is expected to weaken into a depression by Sunday before nearing land, according to the National Hurricane Center. Credit: CSU/CIRA & NOAA via Storyful
Euronews
17-04-2025
- Science
- Euronews
What are milky seas? 400 years of sailors' stories are shedding light on ocean bioluminescence
ADVERTISEMENT 'The whole appearance of the ocean was like a plane covered with snow. There was scarce a cloud in the heavens, yet the sky appeared as black as if a storm was raging.' These are the words written by a sailor in 1854, after encountering the rare phenomenon seafarers called 'milky seas'. These glowing ocean events have baffled humans for centuries. The 'awful grandeur' the nineteenth-century sailor described - which made him think the end was nigh - we now know to be a form of bioluminescence : light emitted by living organisms during chemical reactions in their bodies. But this oceanic bioluminescence is still shrouded in mystery. To try and understand this phenomenon, researchers in the US have created a database combining 400 years of sailors' eyewitness accounts with modern satellite data. Related Toxic dust and stressed seals: What the shrinking Caspian Sea could mean for people and nature Millions of people are tuning in to watch a 24-hour livestream of moose migrating in Sweden The team at Colorado State University (CSU) and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere say this will help research vessels anticipate when and where a milky sea will occur, enabling them to collect samples. 'Milky seas are incredible expressions of our biosphere whose significance in nature we have not yet fully determined,' says Professor Steven Miller, co-author of a new study about the database. 'Their very existence points to unexplored connections between the surface and the sky, and between microscopic to the global scale roles of bacteria in the Earth system. 'With the help of this new database, forged from sea-faring ships of the 17th century all the way to spaceships of modern times, we begin to build a bridge from folklore to scientific understanding.' What causes milky seas? From snow white to 'a brilliant and bright green', ghostly grey to turquoise, milky seas have been observed in various shades over the years. They cover a wide distance - sometimes over 100,000 square kilometres - and can last for weeks on end. This steady glow differentiates them from other, more common kinds of bioluminescence in water, like the flashing of plankton. They are so vast and bright that they can sometimes be seen from space. Milky seas are believed to be caused by bacterial activity - most likely from a luminous microscopic bacteria called Vibrio harveyi . This specific strain was found living on the surface of algae within a bloom by a research vessel that managed to take a sample in 1985. But as the milky displays occur only rarely, and typically in remote regions of the Indian Ocean , scientists have struggled to get the biological information to confirm this. 'It is really hard to study something if you have no data about it,' says Justin Hudson, a PhD student in CSU's Department of Atmospheric Science and the paper's first author. 'There is only one known photograph at sea level that came from a chance encounter by a yacht in 2019,' he adds, 'so, there is a lot left to learn about how and why this happens and what the impacts are to those areas that experience this.' Related Scientists were in Antarctica when a giant iceberg broke free. Here's what they found in its shadow HMS Erebus: Can archaeologists solve this 'mysterious puzzle' before climate change stops them? How are milky seas connected to climate events? The new database shows that sightings usually happen around the Arabian Sea and Southeast Asian waters. It also reveals that they are statistically related to the Indian Ocean Dipole and the El Niño Southern Oscillation when sea surface temperatures vary. Since both these climate phenomena can impact global weather, the researchers are curious to know exactly how milky seas are linked to these patterns. 'The regions where this happens the most are around the northwest Indian Ocean near Somalia and Socotra, Yemen, with nearly 60 per cent of all known events occurring there. At the same time, we know the Indian monsoon's phases drive biological activity in the region through changes in wind patterns and currents,' says Hudson. ADVERTISEMENT 'It seems possible that milky seas represent an understudied aspect of the large-scale movement of carbon and nutrients through the Earth system. That seems particularly likely as we learn more and more about bacteria playing a key role in the global carbon cycle both on land and in the ocean.' He notes that the regions where milky seas occur feature a lot of biological diversity and are important economically to fishing operations - so there are significant local implications too. 'We have no idea what milky seas mean for the ecosystems they are found in,' adds Miller. 'They could be an indication of a healthy ecosystem or distressed one - the bacteria we suspect are behind it are a known pest that can negatively impact fish and crustaceans,' he says. ADVERTISEMENT 'Having this data ready allows us to begin answering questions about milky seas beyond hoping and praying a ship runs into one accidentally.'
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Cyclone Errol Shows 'Some Signs of Weakening' as 'Intense Storm' Swirls Off Western Australia
Cyclone Errol showed 'some signs of weakening' as it swirled off the coast of Western Australia from Wednesday, April 16, to Thursday, April 17. The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) released this imagery on X, which was captured from 9 am UTC on Wednesday (5 pm AWST on Wednesday) to 9 pm UTC (5 am AWST on Thursday). 'Cyclone Errol, while still an intense storm, is showing some signs of weakening after developing a strong central eye,' the source wrote. According to the latest information from the Bureau of Meteorology on Thursday, the category 4 cyclone would 'start weakening and move towards the west Kimberley coast today.' Credit: CSU/CIRA & JMA/JAXA via Storyful
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Watch the world's largest iceberg run aground near remote island in South Atlantic Ocean
Newly released satellite footage shows the world's largest iceberg running aground near a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean last month. The timelapse video, published by Colorado State University's Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, shows the iceberg, called A23a, becoming stuck in shallow waters about 90 kilometers (roughly 56 miles) off the southwestern coast of South Georgia Island over the course of March. Slightly smaller than Rhode Island, A23a originally split from Antarctica's Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986 and then remained grounded on the seabed in the Weddell Sea for over 30 years, according to the British Antarctic Survey. It began drifting in 2020 after gradually melting for years, and its migration was accelerated by currents and winds sweeping it north towards warmer air and waters, the BBC reported last year. British Antarctic Survey oceanographer Dr. Andrew Meijers remarked that the iceberg running aground wouldn't 'significantly affect' the millions of animals that reside on South Georgia Island. There are also no permanent human settlements on the island, so humans won't be affected either; however, there are two research stations at King Edward Point and on the nearby Bird Island that have peak summer populations of 44 and 10, respectively. 'If the iceberg stays grounded, we don't expect it to significantly affect the local wildlife of South Georgia…In the last few decades, the many icebergs that end up taking this route through the Southern Ocean soon break up, disperse and melt,' Dr. Meijers said. 'Commercial fisheries have been disrupted in the past however, and as the berg breaks into smaller pieces, this might make fishing operations in the area both more difficult and potentially hazardous.' 'Well above normal' temperatures expected for Southern California this week 'It will be interesting to see what will happen now, [because] from a scientific perspective we are keen to see how the iceberg will affect the local ecosystem,' he continued. 'Nutrients stirred up by the grounding and from its melt may boost food availability for the whole regional ecosystem, including for charismatic penguins and seals. We have several ongoing studies looking at exactly how 'megabergs' influence the ocean circulation, its chemistry, and the ecosystems they support.' As for whether or not A23a's history is linked to global warming, Dr. Meijers noted that iceberg activity is normal but increasing. 'Icebergs, including 'megabergs' like this one, are a completely normal part of the lifecycle of the Antarctic, and Greenland, ice sheets. They basically are pushed out into the ocean by the weight of continental ice behind, begin to float as ice shelves, and eventually break off as icebergs due to a combination of flexure by winds, waves, tides and ocean melting,' he explained. 'However, observations show that the ice shelves have lost around 6000 giga tonnes of their mass since the year 2000, which is roughly matched by an increase in straight up melt of the ice shelves and aligns with a measured mass loss of the grounded ice over Antarctica attributed to anthropogenic climate change.' South Georgia Island is a large body of land that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Watch: Satellite imagery captures Table Rock Fire reaching North Carolina
TABLE ROCK, S.C. (STORYFUL) — The Table Rock Fire in South Carolina had grown to over 10,000 acres as of Friday, March 28, reaching the North Carolina border, according to the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere Timelapse satellite imagery released by CIRA shows the fire's growth from March 23 to 27. A statewide burn ban was in effect, and the fire remained zero percent contained as of Friday afternoon, according to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
