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☆ Opinion | There’s No Escape From Wildfire Smoke
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( David Wallace-Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

This season so far, the total is already more than 1.5 million — which would make it the province’s third-worst annual result, just a few weeks into May, with months more of wildfire season still to burn. In the United States, by contrast, those who live in fear of wildfire are probably breathing a bit easier. Last year was a relatively light one, with fewer than eight million acres burning across the country — close to the two-decade average and well below the damage of several especially scarring recent seasons. But a new lesson from the evolving science of wildfire is about how far its toxic smoke spreads and how widely its noxious impacts are distributed. In fact, according to one not-yet-published study led by Stanford researchers exploring the distribution of wildfire smoke, an estimated 60 percent of the smoke impact of American wildfire is experienced by those living outside the states where the trees are in flames.

☆ Explainer: Why El Nino is a concern for Indian monsoon rains?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Rajendra Jadhav | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

However, a 90% likelihood of an El Nino weather pattern developing during the June-September monsoon season raises the possibility of less than normal rain. WHAT IS EL NINO? As a result, the Indian monsoon tends to be weaker and less reliable during El Nino years. HOW CLOSE IS THE CORRELATION BETWEEN EL NINO AND MONSOON RAIN? The correlation between El Nino and Indian monsoon rainfall is significant, despite occasional instances when India gets normal or above-normal rain during El Nino years.

☆ Weather intelligence company aims to revolutionize forecasting with a constellation of radar satellites
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Diana Olick | In Dianaolick | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Boston-based Tomorrow.io began as a software company that offered hyper-precise, street-level weather forecasting. The company recently launched Tomorrow-R1, what it claims is the world's first commercially built weather-radar satellite, via SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. Tomorrow.io used proprietary software not just to predict but also to help companies plan for severe weather. The new radar satellite, however, will offer a much broader scope of data. Elkabetz said the company intends to launch more than two dozen of its own satellites over the next two years.

☆ Cyclone Mocha tears into Myanmar
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Cyclone Mocha barrels into Myanmar The powerful storm unleashes its fury, disrupting communications in the regionAround midday on Sunday, Cyclone Mocha pummelled western Myanmar and southern Bangladesh. Map shows the path of Cyclone Mocha. It originated in the Bay of Bengal three days before it hit the coast of Myanmar on May 14. Satellite images show Sittwe before and after landfall of Cyclone Mocha, in Myanmar. Myanmar’s coast bore the brunt of the storm surge from Mocha, according to data from the EU’s Joint Research Centre.

☆ Balloons detect mysterious sounds in the stratosphere below the human hearing limit. Scientists can't explain.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Solar-powered balloons are recording mysterious sounds below human hearing in the stratosphere. These balloons listen to the Earth from a dozen miles up, but not in frequencies that the human ear can detect. "In the infrasound domain our planet is very rich," Bowman, a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, told Insider. "I think one of the reasons humans can't hear infrasound is because we'd go nuts if we could." But Bowman wants to see more people flying infrasound-recording stratosphere balloons.

☆ If you see a killer whale, 'never enter the water.' What to do during an orca encounter, according to a whale expert.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Grace Eliza Goodwin | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A whale expert told Khaleej Times you should "never enter the water" if you see a killer whale. There was even one incident where killer whales sank a sailboat. Nigel Killeen / Contributor / Getty ImagesLuckily, there have never been any recorded fatal orca attacks on humans in the wild, Natoli told Khaleej Times. "Try not to approach them from the back or from the front, stay on their side instead," Natoli told Khaleej Times. By contrast, in the United Arab Emirates, Natoli told Khaleej Times that sightings are rare in the region, with only about one every year and a half.

☆ How can you tell if someone isn’t really into doing you a favor?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Every two minutes or so, all over the world, someone asks someone else for a small favor. But what happens in those rare instances when someone declines to do a favor? Even when humans decline a request for a favor, they almost never say the word no out loud. Now, maybe that's true, and if they keep doing it, pretty quickly you won't be that person's friend anymore." "When our responses to crises work well, we're doing things like evoking a specific social identity.

☆ Column: Drive to keep cool kicks off peak US power emissions season
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Gavin Maguire | Thomson Reuters | Gavin Maguire Is The Global Energy Transition Columnist. He Was Previously Asia Commodities | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Around 416 million air conditioner units are estimated to be in use in the U.S., or more than three per household. This results in the U.S. power system having a higher carbon intensity during the summer period than over winter months. Carbon intensity measures the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is discharged to generate each unit of energy. US power sector emissions seasonallyThat difference in carbon intensity during the summer versus the yearly average is roughly 3%, and so may not appear to be particularly significant. However, given that production of non-emitting solar power peaks during the summer, the fact that power producers must also deploy large volumes of fossil fuels highlights just how much extra power is needed during the air conditioning season.

☆ It’s Been a Warm 2023 for the Eastern U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Talal Ansari | Suryatapa Bhattacharya | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

It was ice cream weather in Washington, D.C., in February. Photo: Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg NewsThe eastern U.S. had a record warm start to the year, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia all had their warmest January to April on record, data from NOAA’s U.S. climate report show. Other Eastern states—Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina and West Virginia—posted their second-warmest period. NOAA and its predecessors have been recording weather data since the 1800s.

☆ Hurricanes of Data: The Tiny Craft Mapping Superstorms at Sea
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Porter Fox | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +35 min

The Tiny Craft Mapping Superstorms at Sea Shortly after dawn on Sept. 30, 2021, Richard Jenkins watched a Category 4 hurricane overrun his life’s work. That August, a sister ship, SD 1031, successfully entered Tropical Storm Henri, but only in its early stages. Hurricane research, modeling and forecasting requires many terabytes of data for every square mile the storm passes through, including vitally important sea-level data from inside a storm. The next day, the depression was upgraded to a tropical storm and officially given the name Sam. And four months later, Tropical Storm Megi killed more than 150, wiped out several villages with landslides and displaced more than a million people.

☆ Here are 10 AI-powered tools to help boost your productivity at work
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Sarah Jackson | Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

ChatGPT isn't the only AI-powered tool that can help make your job easier. Here are 10 that can help with everything from generating slideshows to writing emails. Tome: Building slide decksIf you make a lot of PowerPoints for work, the app Tome can help you do it faster. Managing your inbox can be a pretty tedious time-suck, but tools like Remail might help you get through emails more efficiently. Brain.fm, an AI-generated music tool, can help users stay on task.

☆ I tried of the best AI productivity tools for a week to make my job easier. Here are the 2 I've kept using, and the 2 that made my life harder.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Labor experts agree that AI tools can make workers more productive. Insider's Aaron Mok tested 4 AI tools for a week to see if they can boost productivity. AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT have taken the world by storm — and workers are using them to make their jobs easier. Many experts agree that AI tools can boost productivity, and people have already used ChatGPT and other AI tools to generate articles, write code, and produce real estate listings in attempts to save time. AI tools will not do your job, but they can make it easier if you spend time learning how to use themAfter playing with these tools for a week, I realized that there's a learning curve.

☆ Loaf-size mission to improve hurricane forecasting is ready to launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —A new mission designed to improve hurricane forecasting is ready to launch, just ahead of the June 1 arrival of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season. The NASA mission includes a constellation of CubeSats called TROPICS, or Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats. The launch of this first mission, nicknamed “Rocket Like a Hurricane,” will stream live on NASA’s website and Rocket Lab’s website. Two additional CubeSats, nicknamed “Coming to a Storm Near You,” will launch from the same location later this month. The TROPICS satellites will launch from New Zealand.

☆ Strange, 7-foot-long cannibalistic fish with fangs that live in the deep sea are washing up on the West Coast and scientists don't know why
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Lancetfish live in the deep sea, have fanged jaws and long scaleless bodies, and eat their own. The cannibalistic fish has been washing up on the West Coast, but scientists can't explain why. Video taken in California in 2021 shows a lancetfish flapping its jaw and writhing on the sand. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest on the culture & business of sustainability — delivered weekly to your inbox. The video shows the lancet flapping its fanged jaw and writhing wildly on the sand.

☆ Ocean temperatures are off the charts right now, and scientists are alarmed
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Laura Paddison | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —Ocean surface heat is at record-breaking levels. Since La Niña ended in March, ocean temperatures seem to be on a rebound, scientists say. Worrying impacts of ocean warmingWhatever the reasons behind the increase in ocean heat, the impacts are potentially catastrophic if temperatures continue to head off the charts. For now, ocean surface temperatures have started to fall, even if they remain high for this time of year. As scientists continue to analyze the reasons for record ocean warming, they are clear records will continue to be smashed as the climate crisis intensifies.

☆ Sick of Bumpy, Delayed Flights? New Weather Tech Could Help.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Julie Weed | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Better data, smarter softwareThe travel industry “cares about getting their weather predictions right because weather affects everything,” said Amy McGovern, director of the National Science Foundation’s A.I. Those better weather predictions rely on a type of artificial intelligence called machine learning, where in essence, a computer program is able to use data to improve itself. In this case, companies create software that uses historical and current weather data to make predictions. In addition, it incorporates satellite and radar reports from sources like the National Weather Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration. Here’s how all this may improve your future trips:Safer and calmer flightsThe skies are getting bumpier.

☆ NASA footage reveals 4 types of solar eruptions and 'holes' that could affect Earth as the sun grows more active
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The sun is slamming Earth with solar flares and high-speed eruptions of plasma. Solar flares can have the power of 1 billion hydrogen bombsA solar flare erupts — the bright flash on the bottom right of the sun — on March 28, 2023. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the upper right – on March 3, 2023. CMEs are common culprits of solar storms on Earth, since they can send a powerful flood of solar particles washing over the planet. Coronal holes open a highway for solar windA video from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the massive hole in the sun's atmosphere.

☆ Why Does This Cannibalistic Fish Keep Washing Ashore?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Lauren Mccarthy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For hundreds of years, a strange species of fish with long fanglike teeth that eats its own kind and spends most of its time at the bottom of the ocean has somehow found its way to the shores of the West Coast. The latest appearance by a lancetfish, as the species is known, was on a beach in Oregon, state officials said Monday, prompting more speculation about why the deep-sea creature occasionally surfaces on land. Lancetfish are obscure in part because they have no commercial appeal — meaning that they don’t taste good. The silvery and gelatinous fish have a “scientific name translates to something like scaleless lizard or scaleless dragon,” and they look the part, said Elan Portner, a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, one place where lancetfish have been found washed ashore. Lancetfish also “migrate as far north as subarctic areas like Alaska’s Bering Sea to feed,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

☆ Billionaire Richard Branson defends space travel, argues it can benefit planet
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Anmar Frangoul | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Richard Branson on board Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity in July 2021. The billionaire believes the environmental costs of space travel are set to "come down even further." British billionaire Richard Branson believes space travel can be beneficial for the planet, arguing that trips like the one he undertook in 2021 open doors and cut red tape. During his interview with the BBC, Branson described space travel as being "incredibly important" for the Earth and made the case for it to continue. "Communication between people is being transformed because of space travel and satellites up there," he said.

☆ SpaceX to spend about $2 billion on Starship this year, as Elon Musk pushes to reach orbit
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Michael Sheetz | In Michaeljsheetz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The SpaceX Starship lifts off from the launchpad during a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 20, 2023. Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty ImagesElon Musk expects SpaceX to spend about $2 billion on its Starship rocket development this year, as the company pushes to build on its first launch earlier this month. "To my knowledge, we do not need to raise incremental funding for SpaceX," Musk said. As for the dramatic first fully stacked Starship rocket launch on April 20," the SpaceX CEO said, "The outcome was roughly in what I expected, and maybe slightly exceeding my expectations." He put the probability of reaching orbit with a Starship flight this year at "probably" 80%, but espoused that he thinks there is a "100% chance of reaching orbit within 12 months."

☆ Fact Check-Ocean pulled to Earth by force of gravity
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The ocean is pulled down to Earth due to gravity, despite a viral post shared online falsely claiming that the planet’s oceans are held inside a “container,” with Antarctica forming the external ridge. The posts allude to flat earth conspiracies. OUR CONTAINER.”The ocean is pulled down to the irregular ellipsoid-shaped Earth due to gravity (here), however, and is not held together by containers on a flat surface. On Earth, per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “gravity pulls all objects ‘downward’ toward the center of the planet” (bit.ly/41XcxYq). The ocean is pulled to Earth due to gravity.

☆ California's reappearing phantom lake could remain for two years in the Central Valley
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

An aerial view of a home (C) surrounded by floodwaters in the reemerging Tulare Lake, in California’s Central Valley, on April 14, 2023 in Corcoran, California. Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesSatellite images taken over the past several weeks show a dramatic resurrection of Tulare Lake in California's Central Valley and the flooding that could remain for as long as two years across previously arid farmland. This week, a heat wave could prompt widespread snow melt in the mountains and threaten the small farming communities already dealing with the resurrected Tulare Lake. Satellite imagery shows a large swath of farmland before water filled the Tulare Basin. Planet LabsSatellite images show miles of flooding after California's Tulare Lake returns.

CNN —Thunderstorms can bring dangerous lightning, heavy rain, strong winds and sometimes ice stones falling from the sky – known, of course, as hail. Hail forms when warming at the Earth’s surface causes water to evaporate and rise, eventually reaching freezing temperatures higher in the atmosphere. Hail formation can be broken into two types: wet growth or dry growth, according to the National Weather Service. The new formations then fall and freeze together relatively slowly, which can give hail interesting shapes depending on how the pieces combine. Since freezing isn’t immediate during wet growth, air bubbles can escape, which makes these hailstones partially clear.

☆ These are the places most at risk from record-breaking heat waves as the planet warms
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Laura Paddison | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

They identified Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea and Central America – including Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua – as “hot spots” for high-risk heat waves. Not only is there high potential for record-breaking extreme heat, but the impacts will be intensified by the huge difficulties the country already faces, he said. “When a really extreme heat wave does finally come along, then there are instantly going to be a lot of problems,” Mitchell said. Heat waves have a wide-ranging negative impact. They also take a heavy toll on human health, and extreme heat is one of the deadliest natural disasters.

The northern and southern lights, which are usually confined to the Arctic and Antarctica, have generated awe and wonder for centuries. The northern lights were visible over St. Mary's lighthouse in Whitley Bay, England on Monday. The southern lights glowed over Lake Ellesmere on the outskirts of Christchurch, New Zealand on Monday. Over the next few years, the northern lights might appear further south more regularly, said Robert Massey, executive director at the Royal Astronomical Society. A National Weather Service employee took a photo of the northern lights in Maine on Sunday.

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