#NASA – Page 2 – champagnewhisky

Floating Farms

I always have a soft spot for illustrations of future visions. This image of seaweed carriers is no exception. A company called Seaweed Energy Solutions (SES) has developed and patented seaweed growing technology that it hopes will make possible the cultivation of seaweed on a vastly larger scale than we have seen thus far. …

Watery Treasure

Draining swamps and wetlands has, over the course of human civilization, been seen as a way to grasp land from the greedy waters that cover most of the Earth’s surface. Add to this that much of the drained, reclaimed land is then conveniently located on prime river or coastal property, and the terrestrial inclination to…

Weaving a New Mantle

Moving at a glacial pace is how we’ve always described something so sluggish as to be practically immobile. Geological time is what we sometimes say when we talk about things that take forever to occur, at least when using the yardstick of human life spans. The Earth’s mantle, that layer between the outer core of…

Pulse Taking

‘Long memory’ is a term used in probability analysis. It originated in hydrology to predict flood patterns on the Nile River. But do rivers remember where they once flowed? A large pulse of water was released along the Colorado River this year, an historic ecological undertaking meant to restore the once-lush downriver sections and delta.…

The Big Picture

By: PK Read April 12, 2014April 10, 2014

Green#Amazon, #car wash, #expat life, #France, #mineral dust, #NASA, #Sahara, #USGS, environment, pollution1 Comment

The dust of the Sahara is one of the world’s great transport methods for depositing minerals around the world. An estimated 60 – 200 million tons of mineral dust per year gets blown from the Sahara to points all across the globe, fertilizing the Amazon, affecting the weather, causing hazy skies, blanketing land and sea…

A River Runs Through It

By: PK Read March 14, 2014

Green#biodiversity, #dams, #hydropower, #International Rivers, #NASA, #rivers, #RiversUniteUs, #water, conservation, environment, natureLeave a Comment

There’s the old saying about never crossing the same river twice, and that’s truer now than ever. Rivers have changed dramatically over the past few decades. I probably crossed a few undammed, unhindered rivers on family trips when I was a kid, but if I tried to do the same thing today, I would need…

Old Water Ways

These satellite images show winter snow levels in California in early 2013, when the state was already experiencing drought conditions, and in 2014, when the state is officially in the worst drought on record. Much of the annual fresh water in the state is the result of snow melt. California is no stranger to the…

Sunspot Window

Besides being the sole source of warmth here on the third planet in its orbit, the Sun displays surface activity that is beautiful as well as relevant. These images from NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) were taken and processed with a number of techniques that highlight sunspot phases. Sunspots are temporary areas of high magnetic…

The Proverbial Drop

The recent Warsaw Climate Change Conference ended with a couple of modest successes, the main one being that the conversation will continue between nations as to what to do about man-made impact on the climate. An initiative to support efforts at slowing deforestation received funding to the tune of $280 million from three countries. Developed…

Input and Loss

At the UNFCCC COP19 in Warsaw this week, a new programme was launched under the auspices of the World Bank: The BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL). The initial funding amount is set at $280 million USD. Norway has pledged up to $135 million to the initiative, Britain $120 million and the United…