(Press-News.org) Looking at the extent of a tropical cyclone's clouds from space doesn't tell you all you need to know about a storm, so satellites use infrared, microwave and multi-spectral imagery to look "under the hood." Two NASA satellites provided an outside and inside look at Tropical Storm Cimaron as it was starting to make landfall in China.
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Cimaron on July 17 at 17:29 UTC (1:29 p.m. EDT). Infrared data helps determine temperature, such as the cloud top and sea surface temperatures. AIRS data revealed that Cimaron's strongest storms and heaviest rains were east of the center and had cloud top temperatures near -63F/-52C and stretched from northern Luzon, Philippines to the southern tip of Taiwan at the time Aqua passed overhead.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Cimaron over Taiwan and China on July 18 at 02:55 UTC (7/17 at 10:55 p.m. EDT). Cimaron's western edge had already reached the coast of southeastern China (where it is expected to make landfall).Most of the heaviest thunderstorms at the time Terra passed overhead were over the South China Sea. The visible MODIS image also showed that Cimaron appears more disorganized than it was the day before. There appear to be four areas of strong thunderstorms, fragmented around the center of circulation. The strongest storms were in Cimaron's eastern quadrant.
On July 17 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT), Cimaron's maximum sustained winds dropped to 35 knots (40 mph/64.8 kph). Cimaron's center was just off the coast of southeastern China, and its center was poised for landfall. The storm's center was located near 24.0 north latitude and 116.9 east longitude, about 176 nautical miles (202 miles/ 326 km) east-northeast of Hong Kong. Cimaron was moving to the northwest at 6 knots (7 mph/11.1 kph).
At that time, radar from Shantou, China showed shallow rainbands wrapping into a well-defined center. At that time, Shantou was just 15 nautical miles (17.2 miles/27.7 km) west-southwest of Cimaron's center of circulation.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued their final bulletin on the storm, and noted that Cimaron is expected to quickly dissipate inland.
INFORMATION:
NASA's 2 views of Tropical Storm Cimaron making landfall in China
2013-07-19
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Americans continue to use more renewable energy sources, according to Lawrence Livermore analysis
2013-07-19
Americans used more natural gas, solar panels and wind turbines and less coal to generate electricity in 2012, according to the most recent U.S. energy charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Each year, the Laboratory releases energy flow charts that track the nation's consumption of energy resources.
Natural gas use is up particularly in the electricity generation sector, where it has basically substituted directly for coal, while sustained low natural gas prices have prompted a shift from coal to gas in the electricity generating sector, according ...
Climate change could deprive Volta Basin of water needed to boost energy and food production
2013-07-19
ACCRA, GHANA (19 July, 2013)—A new study released today finds that so much water may be lost in the Volta River Basin due to climate change that planned hydroelectric projects to boost energy and food production may only tread water in keeping up with actual demand. Some 24 million people in Ghana, Burkina Faso and four other neighboring countries depend on the Volta River and its tributaries as their principal source of water.
Specifically, the researchers with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and their partners concluded that the combined effects ...
Graphene 'onion rings' have delicious potential
2013-07-19
Concentric hexagons of graphene grown in a furnace at Rice University represent the first time anyone has synthesized graphene nanoribbons on metal from the bottom up -- atom by atom.
As seen under a microscope, the layers brought onions to mind, said Rice chemist James Tour, until a colleague suggested flat graphene could never be like an onion.
"So I said, 'OK, these are onion rings,'" Tour quipped.
The name stuck, and the remarkable rings that chemists marveled were even possible are described in a new paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The ...
Weight loss drug helps curb cocaine addictions, Penn study finds
2013-07-19
PHILADELPHIA—The drug topiramate, typically used to treat epilepsy and more recently weight loss, may also help people addicted to both cocaine and alcohol use less cocaine, particularly heavy users, researchers in the department of Psychiatry at Penn Medicine report in a new study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Results from the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial adds to the growing body of evidence supporting topiramate as a promising medication to treat addiction.
Past, separate studies have shown that topiramate can reduce alcohol dependence, as well ...
Study analyzes dynamical properties in antibiotic resistance enzyme
2013-07-19
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been emerging at an alarming rate. In some of the scariest of these pathogens, the mechanism responsible for the bacteria's ability to defeat antibiotics is a complex protein molecule embedded in the bacterial cell wall -- the enzyme β-lactamase.
The rapid evolution of β-lactamase is the key factor responsible for the growing antibiotic resistance of some of the most terrifying pathogenic bacteria on the planet – bacteria which are becoming rapidly immune to most, if not all, of our drugs. We can trace the genetic changes ...
Snow in an infant solar system
2013-07-19
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA - http://www.eso.org/alma) have taken the first ever image of the snow line in an infant solar system. On Earth, snow lines form at high altitudes where falling temperatures turn the moisture in the air into snow. This line is clearly visible on a mountain, where the snow-capped summit ends and the rocky face begins.
The snow lines around young stars form in a similar way, in the distant, colder reaches of the dusty discs from which solar systems form. Starting from the star and moving outwards, ...
How Mars' atmosphere got so thin: New insights from Curiosity
2013-07-19
ANN ARBOR—New findings from NASA's Curiosity rover provide clues to how Mars lost its original atmosphere, which scientists believe was much thicker than the one left today.
"The beauty of these measurements lies in the fact that these are the first really high-precision measurements of the composition of Mars' atmosphere," said Sushil Atreya, professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at the University of Michigan.
Atreya is co-author of two related papers published in the July 19 issue of Science, and co-investigator on Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars ...
A snow line in an infant solar system: Astronomers take first images
2013-07-19
ANN ARBOR—Like the elevation in the Rocky Mountains where the snow caps begin, a snow line in a solar system is the point where falling temperatures freeze and clump together water or other chemical compounds that would otherwise be vapor. Astronomers believe snow lines in space serve a vital role in forming planets because frozen moisture can help dust grains stick together.
Astronomers have, for the first time, directly imaged a snow line at another star. Using the new Atacama Larger Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile, they obtained radio-wavelength ...
New research suggests that gingival stem cells can be used in tissue regeneration
2013-07-19
Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published a paper titled "Gingivae Contain Neural-crest- and Mesoderm-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells." The paper, written by lead author Songtao Shi, Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Ostrow School of Dentistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA, is published in the OnlineFirst portion of the IADR/AADR Journal of Dental Research.
Gingivae represent a unique soft tissue that serves as a biological barrier to cover the oral cavity side of ...
Good vibrations: Mediating mood through brain ultrasound
2013-07-19
University of Arizona researchers have found in a recent study that ultrasound waves applied to specific areas of the brain appear able to alter patients' moods. The discovery has led the scientists to conduct further investigations with the hope that this technique could one day be used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety.
Dr. Stuart Hameroff, professor emeritus of the UA's departments of anesthesiology and psychology and director of the UA's Center for Consciousness Studies, is lead author on the first clinical study of brain ultrasound, which was published ...