Morning photo: Planet Earth

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

It’s a small blue marble we live on

Cloud streets around the southern tip of Greenland captured by a NASA Aqua/MODIS satellite March 6. 2012. According to NASA, Cloud streets form when cold air blows over warmer waters, while a warmer air layer—or temperature inversion—rests over top of both. The comparatively warm water of the ocean gives up heat and moisture to the cold air mass above, and columns of heated air—thermals—naturally rise through the atmosphere. As they hit the temperature inversion like a lid, the air rolls over like the circulation in a pot of boiling water. The water in the warm air cools and condenses into flat-bottomed, fluffy-topped cumulus clouds that line up parallel to the wind. PHOTO COURTESY NASA.

SUMMIT COUNTY — I’m constantly amazed by the stream of visual information coming from the many satellites orbiting the Earth, and every time I see a particularly cool image, I think to myself that it adds just another tiny piece to the puzzle of understanding how we as humans fit into the greater cosmic scheme. Even for me, as a non-scientist, the exposure to the images helps be “get” how atmospheric systems work and how land, water and the sky are really all part of the same system. That’s why I’m breaking tradition today, by running a short set of satellite images instead of Summit Voice shots. Visit the NASA Earth Observatory online or follow on Twitter to get a feed of images. (more…)

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