Current Events

  • Atmospheric CO2 Level Tops 400 ppm
    During the week of May 13th, the CO2 level at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii topped 400 ppm rep...Read more

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    Atmospheric CO2 Level Tops 400 ppm

    During the week of May 13th, the CO2 level at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii topped 400 ppm repeatedly. Daily levels of CO2 can vary due to weather, and there are seasonal trends as well. The level of atmospheric greenhouse gases continues to increase, now over 120 ppm since the Industrial Revolution began. For more on the Keeling Curve, see http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/. Find out more about greenhouse gases and warming.
  • Massive Tornado Outbreak on Tornado Alley
    The week of May 19 brings dozens of tornadoes to Tornado Alley in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Io...Read more

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    Massive Tornado Outbreak on Tornado Alley

    The week of May 19 brings dozens of tornadoes to Tornado Alley in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. On May 20th, a massive tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, devastating communities - destroying over 100 homes and hitting two elementary schools and a hospital - with many casualties and deaths. Our thoughts are with our friends and colleagues suffering from these storms. For more on the May 20th storms, see the NOAA Storm Prediction Center Storm Report.
  • Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education
    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of ...Read more

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    Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education

    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of sustainability. Here is a link to the one-page bill: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2366_00_0000.pdf. See report on Bloomberg News.

    Courtesy of David Greenberg

From: David Greenberg
Veracruz, March 12, 2006

Success!

Yesterday afternoon we succesfully launched two balloons from a site sligthly northwest of Mexico City. Although we can control the height of the balloon somewhat, the direction it goes in is controlled by the wind. Well, the wind pulled a quick one on us and decided to take the first balloon right into the airspace of the Mexico City airport. Bad idea! We had to terminate the flight.

Our second balloon fared much better, however and flew for almost 24 hours before it went too high during a sounding and the flight terminated. A sounding is a delicate maneuver that lets us explore the wind currents at different altitudes by first directing the balloon to go up and then down from it's current level. It is one of the methods we use to track a plume of polluted air.

The picture above is a 3-D characterization of the flight of the second balloon. This was done with Google Earth, which you can download for free here. It's a pretty cool program for tracking the trajectories of the balloons and the airplane flights and many of us are using it.

If all goes well, we will take to the skies again on Wednesday. Stay tuned.

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