Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta The weather. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta The weather. Mostrar todas las entradas

domingo, 9 de noviembre de 2014

NASA : NASA Program Enhances Climate Resilience at Agency Facilities .- Programa de la NASA Mejora la Resistencia al Clima en instalaciones de la Agencia

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia Espacial NASA, nos informa las mejoras que ha realizado en instalaciones para resistir  a las inclemencias del clima. NASA nos dice...." Un nuevo estudio publicado en el último número del Boletín de la Sociedad Meteorológica Americana ofrece una mirada en profundidad la forma en las instalaciones de la NASA se han visto afectadas por los fenómenos climáticos extremos y el cambio climático en los últimos años y cómo la agencia se está preparando para el futuro..............
El uso de una mezcla de datos meteorológicos, resultados globales y regionales de los modelos climáticos, y los avances en la comprensión del sistema climático, el estudio encuentra . Que se espera que muchos tipos de eventos extremos para atacar aumento en la frecuencia y magnitud en el futuro y los riesgos plantean a la misión de la NASA , infraestructura y mano de obra.........
El estudio encontró:  Que por la década de 2050, el nivel del mar se elevan por sí sola podría llevar a un aumento de 50 por ciento o más en las inundaciones costeras con diferentes impactos de frecuencia a las instalaciones de la NASA, un alto porcentaje de los que están situados cerca de las costas. En total, la agencia cuenta con aproximadamente $ 32 mil millones en activos construidos y alrededor de 64.000 empleados, contratistas y socios..................
"La gestión de riesgos es fundamental para la continuidad de las operaciones de la NASA, y la agencia está incluyendo potenciales climáticos extremos en su marco de gestión de riesgos", dijo Calvin Williams, administrador adjunto de la Oficina de Infraestructura Estratégica de la NASA en la sede de la agencia en Washington.............."


Climate-related extreme events such as hurricanes, sea level rise, and wildfires are expected to increase in the future and pose hazards to NASA infrastructure.
Climate-related extreme events such as hurricanes, sea level rise, and wildfires are expected to increase in the future and pose hazards to NASA infrastructure.
Image Credit: 
NASA
A new study in the latest issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society provides an in-depth look at how NASA facilities have been affected by climate extremes and climate change in recent years and how the agency is preparing for the future.
Using a blend of weather data, global and regional climate model outputs, and advances in the understanding of the climate system, the study finds that many types of extreme events are expected to increase in frequency and magnitude in the future and pose hazards to NASA’s mission, infrastructure and workforce.
The study found that by the 2050s, sea level rise alone could lead to an increase of 50 percent or more in coastal flooding frequency with varying impacts to NASA facilities, a high percentage of which are located near coastlines. In total, the agency has approximately $32 billion in constructed assets and about 64,000 employees, contractors and partners.
“Risk management is central to continuity of NASA operations, and the agency is including potential climate extremes in its risk management framework,” said Calvin Williams, assistant administrator for NASA's Office of Strategic Infrastructure at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington.
A partnership between Earth scientists and institutional stewards is helping NASA prepare for a changing climate and increasing vulnerabilities to such change. The agency established the Climate Adaptation Science Investigator (CASI) working group as an important part of this effort. The CASI initiative brings Earth scientists together with facility managers, emergency management staff, natural resource managers and human capital specialists at each NASA center to discuss management of climate risks and resilience.
Workshops were held at five NASA centers that brought together climate scientists, mission operations personnel, human resource managers, and ecosystem specialists. Using the climate projections prepared by CASI scientists in conjunction with each center, risks were explored and adaptation strategies developed.
“NASA has cutting-edge climate science and world-class stewardship at its facilities,” said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, who led the study and the ongoing CASI initiative. “Now climate scientists and institutional stewards are working together to enhance resilience to climate extremes and change.”
The initiative strengthens the science community’s commitment to understanding climate impacts, targets research to the needs of the agency’s institutional stewards, and equips those stewards through workshops and ongoing knowledge sharing as a basis for proactive risk management.
“NASA science provides an important knowledge base that the centers and their surrounding communities can use in preparing for changing climate conditions,” said Jack Kaye, associate director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington. “This integrated, science-based approach to climate risk management can provide a model for other agencies.”
Adaptation strategies underway and under consideration include: beach re-nourishment to minimize sea level rise and storm surge impacts; building designs that reduce reliance on the remote power sources that may become less reliable during extreme events; and, landscaping changes that reduce water use in dry regions and capture rain water to reduce flooding in wet regions.
NASA satellite products and climate models are being used to inform decision-making about energy and water use and other onsite assets. Representatives from nearby agencies, such as local water departments, are participating in the workshops to develop regional approaches.
The agency’s scientist-steward partnership reflects its commitment to deliver value locally, nationally and globally through the sharing of common resources such as water and infrastructure, as well as the exchange of risk information and coordinated planning in the communities where NASA facilities are located.
For details on specific impacts at many NASA facilities, go to:
 
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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domingo, 4 de agosto de 2013

NASA - Unsettled Weather Across Central Australia


Unsettled Weather Across Central Australia
In late July 2013, a low pressure system off Australia’s southeast coast and moist onshore winds combined to create unsettled weather across central Australia – and a striking image of a broad cloud band across the stark winter landscape.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on July 22 at 01:05 UTC (10:35 a.m. Australian Central Standard Time). To the west of the low pressure trough the skies are clear and dry. To the east, the broad band of bright white clouds obscures the landscape. The system brought wind, precipitation and cooler temperatures to the region.
Image Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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ayabaca@hotmail.com
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domingo, 23 de junio de 2013

nsf.gov - Discovery - Summertime: Hot Time in the City

Parks are islands of coolness in cities' urban heat.-
Photo of sun radiating over highway filled with cars in traffic in Phoenix
In summer, extreme heat events are on the way in cities like Phoenix.
Credit: NSF Central-Arizona Phoenix LTER Site
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (100 KB)
Illustration showing how temperatur is higher over urban envrionments compared to rural
The 'urban heat island effect' raises temperatures in cities compared with surrounding areas.
Credit: NASA
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (103 KB) 

People ine Sherman Park, in a low-income Phoenix neighborhood, with very few trees
Sherman Park, part of a low-income Phoenix neighborhood in need of green spaces.
Credit: Sharon Harlan
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (4.9 MB)
Map of vegetation (red), soil (brown, tan), built materials (white) in a south Phoenix neighborhood.
Vegetation (red), soil (brown, tan), built materials (white) in a south Phoenix neighborhood.
Credit: NASA
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (9.8 MB)
Researchers Chris Martin, Darrel Jenerette (background) conducting field work in Phoenix.
Researchers Chris Martin, Darrel Jenerette (background) conducting field work in Phoenix.
Credit: Sharon Harlan
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (5.2 MB)
Heat map of Chicago skyline
Across the nation and around the world, urban areas are heating up.
Credit: Dustin Phillips/Creative Commons
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (112 KB)

The following is part ten in a series on the National Science Foundation's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) investment. Visit parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine in this series.
It's the first day of summer, a hot time in the desert city of Phoenix. And in cities across the United States--and the Northern Hemisphere.
Heat islands, as these urban hot spots are called, are metropolitan areas significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas. Why?
"Us," says sociologist Sharon Harlan of Arizona State University (ASU). "It's all due to the effects of humans. We've modified the surface of the land in ways that retain heat."
Urban heat islands are the result. Soil and grass have been replaced with materials such as asphalt and concrete that absorb heat during the day and re-radiate it at night, causing higher temperatures. 

Summer in a blistering desert
Harlan and colleagues in fields across the social, natural and health sciences are studying urban heat islands--and their opposites, park cool islands where plant growth throws cold water on burning temperatures.
They're conducting the research via a National Science Foundation (NSF) Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) grant. CNH is one of NSF's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability, or SEES, programs.
"Cities can be hot and uncomfortable places for the people who live in them, with some populations especially vulnerable to health problems from urban heat," says Sarah Ruth, CNH program director in NSF's Directorate for Geosciences.
"The city environment and its human inhabitants form a complex system with multiple connections. These researchers have uncovered important information about this system and the interactions among its components.
"The results suggest ways city officials and residents can work together to create places where fewer people suffer the effects of extreme temperatures."
The hot, arid Sonoran Desert is central Arizona's natural environment. Humans have transformed the desert over thousands of years, beginning with early Native American subsistence farmers and continuing with late 19th century Anglo-American commercial growers and 20th century sunbelt migrants.
Metropolitan Phoenix is an ideal laboratory for investigating heat-related human vulnerability, says Harlan. Rapid urbanization has replaced natural vegetation and agricultural fields, increasing summer temperatures during the past 50 years.

Islands of green
What's one of the answers? Park cool islands, found the scientists.
They evaluated the effects of plants' cool greenness on a Phoenix inner-city park.
The results were recently published in the journal Urban Ecosystems. Along with Harlan, co-authors of the paper, all from ASU, are Juan Declet-Barreto, Anthony Brazel, Chris Martin and Winston Chow.
They're also working through the NSF Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, one of 26 such NSF LTER sites across the nation and around the world.
"We predicted air and surface temperatures under two different vegetation regimes: existing conditions representative of Phoenix urban core neighborhoods, and a scenario using principles of landscape design and architecture, and urban heat island mitigation strategies," write the scientists.
They found that the air beneath and around "canopied vegetation"--trees--was cooler than the surroundings.
Larger plants such as trees absorb and reflect the Sun's rays, buffering the heat index. Scientists call it a "microclimate ecosystem service," better known as, simply, shade.
Trees also reduce hot air by turning water from liquid to gas inside their leaves. "Temperatures then fall in the immediate environment," says Martin.
It all adds up to a park cool island. "Park cool islands are usually found in irregular patterns in a city," Declet-Barreto says. "They're nested within warmer spots."

The Latino Urban Core
The team studied the role of park cool islands in a low-income, ethnic minority community in inner-city Phoenix.
The area is called the Latino Urban Core. It's bounded by industrial land to the north, south and east and an interstate highway to the west. The neighborhood's main feature is an electric utility company easement currently used as "linear park space almost entirely devoid of vegetation," states the Urban Ecosystems paper.
The Latino Urban Core's sparse vegetation is mostly in residents' yards. Patches of exposed soil with nothing growing on them are scattered across vacant lots, yards, and the grounds of the "linear park."
Parks in low-income neighborhoods tend to be hotter than parks in higher-income areas, research has shown. Although residents in low-income areas need places to cool off, these neighborhoods have less inherent cooling capacity as there's less green space.
Inner-city green space--lacking in Phoenix's Latino Urban Core--is a crucial component of urban heat island mitigation, Declet-Barreto says. "But it's made more difficult by ongoing debates over urban amenities like parks and the needed resources, such as water, tax dollars, local government will and regular maintenance."
"Ecologies of fear" often arise in neglected green spaces. "They're legacies of environmental and racial discrimination, inner-city decay and a continuing urban planning focus on fringe [suburban] development," write the researchers.
Studies have shown that in Phoenix, inner-city areas bear higher property tax burdens in comparison with suburbs, but the former receive significantly fewer tax dollars for parks, recreation and water supplies.
Minority and low-income communities are increasingly addressing such disparities by demanding a more equitable distribution of urban amenities, such as green spaces like parks.
In low-income communities, parks are often the only available public gathering places. Green spaces, scientists say, can provide cultural, social and--more directly applicable to extreme heat mitigation--human health and ecological benefits.

Cooling down urban heat islands
Finding ways to offset National Science Foundation (NSF)high temperatures in desert cities where the weather is chronically hot, says Harlan, is critical.
Extreme heat, scientists have found, is a threat to human health, increases atmospheric pollutants and energy and water use, alters regional hydrology and affects interactions between humans and ecological processes.
"The problem of heat-related deaths and illnesses is very serious," says Harlan. "Each year, heat fatalities in the U.S. happen in greater numbers than mortality from any other type of weather disaster." High heat wave events--unexpected and long-duration heat waves--are becoming more common in cities like Phoenix, Chicago and Paris.
Climate change and rapidly growing cities are likely to fuel more such events.
"Our research suggests that climate intervention strategies should be targeted at the neighborhoods and population groups that are most vulnerable to environmental hazards like extreme heat events," says Harlan. "We hope our results will be used in better decision-making about climate adaptation in cities."
Greening parks is an intervention strategy, she says, for urban heat island mitigation that could be supported with public resources.
"If targeted to low-income neighborhoods where vulnerability to heat is greater," says Harlan, "it would address an environmental inequity and provide better ecosystem services for these neighborhoods."
One antidote to an urban heat island, it turns out, is another island, a place filled with shade trees and lush growth: a park cool island.
--  Cheryl Dybas, NSF (703) 292-7734   cdybas@nsf.gov
Related Websites
NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Programs:
 http://www.nsf.gov/sees
NSF Publication: Discoveries in Sustainability: 
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/disco12001/disco12001.pdf
NSF News Release: National Science Foundation Awards Grants for Research on Coupled Natural and Human Systems:

 The National Science Foundation (NSF).-
 Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
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