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Contact: Mary Beckmanmary.beckman@pnl.gov 509-375-3688DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Clouds: Lighter than air but laden with lead Atmospheric lead causes clouds to form more easily, could change pattern of rain and snow RICHLAND, Wash. -- By sampling clouds -- and making their own -- researchers have shown for the first time a direct relation between lead in the sky and the formation of ice crystals that foster clouds. The results suggest that lead generated by human activities causes clouds to form at warmer temperatures and with less water. This could alter the pattern of both rain and snow in a warmer world.The...

Are those UFOs near that mountain? No -- they are multilayered lenticular clouds. Moist air forced to flow upward around mountain tops can create lenticular clouds. Water droplets condense from moist air cooled below the dew point, and clouds are opaque groups of water droplets. Waves in the air that would normally be seen horizontally can then be seen vertically, by the different levels where clouds form.

IT’S not so much a cloud with a silver lining, but rather the cloud that looks like a silvery flying saucer. Onlookers were spellbound when they witnessed the unusual phenomenon that “hovered” over the Welsh coast for almost an hour.Sonja Lewis was working at Borth Golf club where her husband, John, is a pro golfer, when she took this picture.“I’d never seen anything like it before, it was like four clouds piled up on top of each other. It was quite beautiful,” she said.

Our little dry streak is about to come to an end. But if you looked at Mt. Rainier today, you would have known that already. Take a look at some of these incredible clouds captured over Mt. Rainier today. The one above was taken by Tim Thompson. [...] Those are called "lenticular clouds" They're caused when the air flow is just right so when it flows over Mt. Rainier, the air gets pushed upward where it cools and condenses into clouds. Depending on how smooth the flow is, you can get some amazing clouds formations as we've seen so far...

Can't Rush and Sean afford to buy them now?

Do you remember your puppy days when you’d lay in a field, look at the sky and use your imagination on the puffs of clouds floating by? Yup, the good old days. These were the times long before you were asked to humiliate yourself by standing on your hind legs just to get a treat. Of course in my cloud observation days, I never really got much further than “Hey, that looks like a ball!” or “Hey, that looks like a chewy!” but no one ever accused me of being creative or bright. Our first entry is this Dachshund running...

Curious cloud formations linked to quakes 11 April 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. Lynn Dicks CAN unusual clouds signal the possibility of an impending earthquake? That's the question being asked following the discovery of distinctive cloud formations above an active fault in Iran before each of two large earthquakes occurred. Geophysicists Guangmeng Guo and Bin Wang of Nanyang Normal University in Henan, China, noticed a gap in the clouds in satellite images from December 2004 that precisely matched the location of the main fault in southern Iran. It stretched for hundreds of kilometres, was visible for several hours and...

Cirrus Disappearance: Warming Might Thin Heat-trapping Clouds ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2007) — The widely accepted (albeit unproven) theory that manmade global warming will accelerate itself by creating more heat-trapping clouds is challenged this month in new research from The University of Alabama in Huntsville.Cirrus clouds. (Credit: NOAA Central Library, Photo by Albert E. Theberge Junior) Instead of creating more clouds, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping cirrus clouds, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in UAHuntsville's Earth System Science Center. That was not what he...

The first photo, one of five for this scene snapped on 2007 August 20, is via the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (Expedition 15). The second picture was taken at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station (Niagara Falls Air Base), New York on 2006 October 4. More information, especially for that top (NASA/ISS) photo, at http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20061021.htm

Asia's brown clouds 'warm planet' The "brown cloud" is pollution from burning wood and fossil fuels Clouds of pollution over the Indian Ocean appear to cause as much warming as greenhouse gases released by human activity, a study has suggested. US researchers used unmanned aircraft to measure the effects of the "brown clouds" on the surrounding area. Writing in Nature, they said the tiny particles increased the solar heating of the lower atmosphere by about 50%. The warming could be enough to explain the retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas, the scientists proposed. The clouds contain a mixture of light...

Since their discovery 120 years ago, strangely luminescent clouds called noctilucent clouds have been creeping slowly toward the equator. Once confined to Earth's poles, the bizarre clouds have now been spotted above central Colorado, and they appear to be getting brighter and more numerous, too, said David Rusch, a University of Colorado atmospheric scientist. This month, NASA plans to launch the $110 million AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) mission to measure noctilucent clouds and the circumstances in which they form - which may be linked to climate change. The satellite will measure air temperature and pressure, moisture content...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. government scientists Friday said the long-term outlook for global warming may be more dire than suggested by this week's United Nations' report, which they say doesn't fully address the impact of clouds and melting glaciers. Recent evidence of accelerated melting of glaciers in Greenland and the Antarctic ice cap came too late to be included in the report released Thursday by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Glaciers are among the largest sources of fresh water in the world and are contributing to rising ocean levels. Rising sea levels could expose population centers bordering the ocean...

Atmospheric scientists have reported a new and potentially important mechanism by which chemical emissions from ocean phytoplankton may influence the formation of clouds that reflect sunlight away from our planet. This intimate connection between life and the environment of Earth could have profound implications for the future of our planet's global ecosystem. Discovery of the new link between clouds and the biosphere grew out of efforts to explain increased cloud cover observed over an area of the Southern Ocean where a large bloom of phytoplankton was occurring. Based on satellite data, the researchers hypothesized that airborne particles produced by oxidation...

War clouds gather in Georgian spy crisis By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow (Filed: 30/09/2006) The crisis in the Caucasus escalated last night as Georgia accused Russia of advancing troops towards its borders after four Russian army officers were charged with spying. Officers check papers at Russian Army headquarters in Tbilisi as Russia evacuates staff and their families The worst breakdown in relations between the two ex-Soviet neighbours in 15 years seemed to worsen hour by hour on a day of high drama. Flouting Kremlin demands for their immediate release, a Tbilisi court ordered the four Russian servicemen, whose arrest on...

Everyone is scientific circles is abuzz with the big news: there's proof that dark matter exists! The paper from the scientists who made the discovered is here; and a Sean Carroll (no relation) has a very good explanation on his blog, Cosmic Variance. This discovery happens to work as a great example of just why good science needs good math. As I always say, one of the ways to recognize a crackpot theory in physics is by the lack of math. For an example, you can look at the electric universe folks. They have a theory, and they make predictions:...

HOBART, Australia - Some of the coldest temperatures on Earth brought a rare cloud formation to the skies over Antarctica, scientists said Tuesday. Meteorological officer Renae Baker captured spectacular images of the nacreous clouds, also known as polar stratospheric clouds, last week at Australia's Mawson station in Antarctica. The clouds only occur at high polar latitudes in winter, requiring temperatures less than minus 176 degrees Fahrenheit. A weather balloon measured temperatures at minus 189 degrees Fahrenheit on the day the photos were taken. Resembling airborne mother-of-pearl shells, the clouds are produced when fading light at sunset passes through water-ice crystals...

Dust clouds transport bacteria from Africa around the world Ian Sample Thursday May 25, 2006 Giant clouds of dust whipped up by desert storms in Africa can carry infectious organisms to other continents, scientists claim today. Despite being blown more than three miles high and exposed to radiation from the sun, strains of bacteria and fungi survived and were able to grow when they returned to Earth, researchers found. Among 40 tests of air samples taken in the mid-Atlantic, 24 revealed living microbes, including 26 colonies of bacteria and 83 fungi. They included strains capable of causing disease in humans,...

Last year was the hottest on record, or the second hottest, depending on the records climatologists look at. The planet has warmed .8 degrees C over the past 150 years, and scientists are generally agreed that greenhouse gases have played a major part in that warming. They also agree that the warming will continue in the decades to come. Many experts are concerned that warming may make two unpleasant things more common: extinctions and diseases. In tomorrow's issue of Nature (link to come here), a team of scientists report on a case that ties these two dangers together: frogs have...

Long, infrared exposures of giant gas and dust clouds reveal structures that are invisible at optical wavelengths (Image: J Foster and A Goodman, CfA) Astronomers have discovered a new way to probe dark clouds of gas and dust in space, shedding light on the mysterious conditions that nurture star birth. Stars condense from giant clouds of molecular gas and dust that float through space. But these stellar wombs are difficult to study because they are barely visible at optical wavelengths. And other methods that probe their structure are not very precise – for example, estimating how much dust they...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel and the Palestinians agreed on Sunday to halt their latest round of rocket attacks and airstrikes, an official said, but the deal threatened to fall through even before it was officially announced when Israeli forces killed two Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank. Israeli forces encircled a house in the West Bank town of Qabatiyeh after sundown Sunday and killed two militants, including Jihad Zakarne, an Islamic Jihad member accused by Israel of planning a deadly suicide bombing last week, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli military had no comment. Islamic...