Earthrise: The 45th Anniversary

NASA has used Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measurements to help recreate the first Earthrise seen by humans. Interesting to hear the astronauts, Lovell’s amazement versus Ander’s cool.

The Northern Lights - a life time experience (Official trailer)

The Crow salutes Pål Brekke for assembling this neat video about the aurora, which you can see in full at the at the Holmenkollen Ski Museum in Oslo. Hope I get a chance to visit that, not only aurora but I would dig the seeing the old skis and skates.

Despite Flak, Weather Channel Will Still Name Winter Storms

Come on #WeatherChannel, you’ve got to be joking. Unprofessional.

NDACC LWG 2013 - Table Mountain

NDACC LWG 2013 - Table Mountain, a set on Flickr.

Some snaps from JPL's Table Mountain Facility during the NDACC Lidar Working Group meeting in November. It was a interesting meeting from which I greatly benefited from the expertise of my colleagues using lasers to study the atmosphere.

Getting ready for Polar Night in Eureka | CREATE Arctic Science

Crow Emily gives a plain-language summary about her research in the Arctic at the CANDAC facility in Eureka.

Raspberry Pi mini Mac Classic: Wow!

This wizard made is own mini Mac Classic!

The Crow Asks: Can you explain these odd contrails?

Last week near sunset I noticed some contrails about (as typically in the YXU at this time of year). But check these out. If you look at the photos you’ll see that “above” each trail the trail looks normal but “below” it is a series of round, puffy clouds, not unlike cirrocumulus clouds. Definitely not billow shaped clouds ones would expect from some kind of gravity wave interaction.

Can anyone tell me is this an altitude affect, dynamics, or is it a function of the type of airplane engine which emitted the water vapour?

PCL’s transmitted laser beam in the rain

In case you wondered what does the PCL’s transmitted laser beam look like when it is drizzling out. The answer is weird, instead of a steady bright green column you get all this “carbonated” bubbling in the beam from the water droplets.

Laser Beam in Drizzle from Robert Sica on Vimeo.

PCL makes the Ontario Physics Grade 12 textbook

Crow Andy joined us at the lidar last night and showed us this page from the Ontario Grade 12 Physics text: the PCL is now appearing in backpacks all over the province.

(this photo dates back to our location at the Delaware Observatory and was taken by Honorary Crow for Life Luc Girard).

Hang a left at Europa

Photographer Ron Miller creates incredible pictures of what it would look like if planets were closer

Agree with John Gruber, that would be one heckuva highway to cruise down.

Colorado Fire Smoke Over London, Canada?

Here’s some uncalibrated lidar measurements from the night of 21 June, 2013 which show what appears to be a faint smoke layer around 13 km. I did a quick and dirty run of HYSPLIT and the trajectories go back to Colorado in about 2 days. They descend about 25% of their initial height, e.g. as they go across the prairies they drop, for instance, from 10,000 m to 7,500 m elevation.

Uncalibrated returns from The University of Western Ontario’s Purple Crow Lidar, shows an apparent thin smoke layer around 13 km altitude. Full size image available here.

A supercell near Booker, Texas

A supercell near Booker, Texas

Incredible time lapse photography of a supercell storm by Mike Oblinski. The small scale structure in the vortex is spectacular. Via Dalton Caldwell on ADN.

@EB 7June13

@EB 7June13, a set on Flickr.

Some fun lidar photos from #EchoBase on Friday night via Crow Emily.

#400ppm Can you gronk this? Cut YOUR carbon footprint now. Don’t understand? Read on.

Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears - NY Times

400 ppm. And rising. You feeling lucky punks? Cause your pushing global CO2 levels where they ain’t been for 3 million years.
“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which reported the new reading.
Perhaps we could do a little better if we could take 1 less trip to the store, walk, ride to work or just do something for the Next Generation who are going to inherit this mess. Trust me, Science isn’t going to save you this time like it did in WWII.

CPSX Spotlight Shines on Crow Emily

CPSX Spotlight: PhD Candidate Emily McCullough

The Centre for Planetary and Space Exploration @westernu puts the spotlight on Crow Emily @uwophysastro. Is she really going to the North Pole every winter to look for Santa? Click the link above for the rest of the story.

Frickin' "Laser" Beam

Great snap by Rob Weryk of the PCL in action: <dr evil>Frickin' "Laser" Beam</dr>

Says Rob: "I went to take some star pics and noticed the Purple Crow Lidar was running ... there is also a satellite flare visible.”

For the record: the PCL is not responsible for hitting that satellite… not this time :–)

#xkcd: Integration by Parts

#xkcd: Integration by Parts, or how I did every E&M problem in Jackson.

The Old Crow Lectures on the Aurora: Friday, 19 April @ RASC-London

The Old Crow Lectures on the Aurora: Friday, 19 April @ RASC-London

I’ve been invited by the Royal Astronomical Society of London to give a public talk:

The Aurora Borealis and Space Weather
Space Weather is the study of the interaction of the particles which flow from the Sun with Earth’s atmosphere. This talk will describe the visual result apparent to us on the surface, the Northern (and Southern) Lights, as well as give a lay description of a cutting edge of research: how can the particles from the Sun affect weather on the surface?
Come on out if just to heckle :–)

Can you resist joining the Citation Club?

As always a great 1 April email from the Space Physics & Aeronomy Section of the American Geophysical Union.

Citation Club Membership

Do not break the chain. In your next publication, cite a paper by every one of the authors in the list below. Then remove the top author, add your name to the bottom of the list, and mail this message to ten of your colleagues who are not on the list. One of our colleagues who broke the chain lost the supporting research and technology grant he had previously successfully renewed a dozen times. A colleague who continued the chain soon had a sufficiently high H-index to both become an AGU fellow and be nominated for fellowship in the NAS.

D.N. Baker
P.A. Isenberg
P.J. Chi
R.E. Ergun
J.A. Goldstein
J.E. Borovski
A. Bagenal
(add your name here)

MSIS Atmospheric Model: on your iOS device!

Atmospheric Model on your iOS device

Kudos to Al Hedin, who for several decades now has been the leader of a project to make the most comprehensive model of the atmosphere from the surface to the the exosphere (e.g. 500 km altitude). I never thought pouring over the MSIS FORTRAN code as a grad student that someday I would have (not only!) a phone in my pocket but one that could run that model, which needed a DEC VAX to compile (yup, pre-PC/Mac).

My new favourite iPhone app! This free app will be a useful professional, student and outreach tool.

Arctic scientists see Canada slipping on world stage

Arctic scientists see Canada slipping on world stage | Toronto Star

Yet increasingly, the basic science that would let us understand changes occurring in our own backyard — and either mitigate or take advantage of them — is being neglected by Canada and assumed by other countries, Arctic researchers say.

Austerity does not mean out-sourcing your future. As our Anthem says: “The True North strong and free!” Would it be cynical to suggest that since the most dramatic changes in climate due to human activity occur in the polar regions it is best to ask as few questions about the North as possible?

Camel fossils found in Canadian Arctic

Paging Lawrence of Nunavut: Camel fossils found in Canadian Arctic

How completely utterly cool is this, your desert camel’s ancestors were Canadian and lived in Nunavut!
Hey Crow Emily keep your eye out for camel bones up there!

Yarn Bomb @westernu

#YarnBomb #westernu @ McIntosh Gallery on Flickr.

Emily's Arctic Adventure (v2013)

Emily's Arctic Adventure: The many hats of Lab Emily

Crow Emily is hard at work on the CRL lidar at Eureka, only 1100 km from the North Pole! Follow her blog.

I believe based on the FoxInSox post in her blog she wears 500 hats (initially).

Hey Crow Emily great man-scan for the door insulation. #itsNotInMirrorRoom

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Hey Crow Emily great man-scan for the door insulation. #itsNotInMirrorRoom

Discovery of upper atmosphere bacteria that affect weather

Research: Discovery of upper atmosphere bacteria that affect weather - National Paeleontology | Examiner.com

Whether the microorganisms routinely inhabit this portion of the atmosphere – perhaps living on carbon compounds also found there – or whether they were simply lofted there from the Earth’s surface is not yet known.

Cool. Live and mutate a 1000 generations at 6 km altitude, coalesce into a raindrop, fall to the survive. Cause a plague.

via the American Meteorological Society

P&A Curling Night 26Jan13 on Flickr.

So after 25 years of watching the Tournament of Hearts Mr & Mrs Crow got to rock the house ourselves. The happy expression on our faces are due in large part to the efforts of the organizer of the event, @pbambry, who wisely put us on different teams that didn’t play each other!