What Happens To The 350 Tons Of Water Vapor Exhaust During A Shuttle Launch?

This:

Naval Research Laboratory scientist Dr. Michael Stevens is leading an international consortium of scientists in tracking the rapid transport of the exhaust plume from the final launch of the space shuttle in July 2011.

The team has found that the plume moved quickly to the Arctic, forming unusually bright polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) there a day after launch.

Understanding the rapid transport of high altitude exhaust plumes near 105 km is providing new insight into the effects of winds at the bottom edge of the space weather regime towards improved forecasts of the co-located E-region of the ionosphere.

This knowledge is critical for improving models of communication signal propagation and over-the-horizon-radar, explains Dr. Stevens, a Research Physicist in NRL’s Space Science Division.

Current theories suggest that the plumes are rapidly transported because of narrow, high-speed wind shears. These wind shears are also linked to the occurrence of so-called Sporadic E events, thus establishing a possible link between plume transport and the lower ionosphere.

During every launch, the space shuttle injects about 350 tons of water vapor from its three main engines off the east coast of the United States between 100 and 115 km altitude.

Many studies have now shown that the poleward transport of this water vapor is much faster than global-scale models predict, and a few have furthermore shown that bursts of PMCs near 83 km altitude can result. These observations are forcing researchers to reexamine their understanding of global wind patterns in the lower thermosphere.

The long-term PMC record is also likely to be modified by increased space traffic, which is important because PMCs have been implicated as indicators of upper atmospheric climate change, explains Dr. Stevens. By assembling a suite of satellite and ground-based observations following the space shuttle’s final launch, the NRL-led research team has revealed the nature of these shuttle clouds for the first time.

The observations from both European and American collaborators show not only the rapid poleward transport of the plume and ensuing PMC formation, but that shuttle clouds are brighter than over 99% of all other PMCs and that the ice particles are larger at higher altitudes, which is the opposite of conventional models.

By allowing researchers to distinguish the shuttle PMCs from more typical clouds, these results will ultimately enable a search of the historical record to separate the anthropogenic PMCs from the natural PMCs.

The research results are reported in a paper in press that was posted on the website of the Journal of Geophysical Research on August 27, 2012.

Information for this post provided by the Naval Research Laboratory

Noctilucent Clouds Near Portland, Ore.

Image 1: Noctilucent clouds (NLCs), or "night-shining clouds," photographed by Vince Varnas from the roof of his house near Portland, Ore., on July 23, 2009. The NLCs were in the north-northwest sky about 10 miles west of Portland.

On viewing the NLCs Varnas says, "I first observed the NLCs at approximately 9:30 p.m. PDT. The NLCs were mostly iridescent white, at that time, but gradually changed color to iridescent blue over the next 25 minutes. I took this photograph at 9:55 p.m. PDT. I have only seen NLCs from my location one other time. That was on July 15, 2009, at about the same time. Then the NLCs were more in the northwest and not as intense as those on July 23. I had been watching for NLCs all summer, as I knew they were occurring over Europe, but not in the United States. I am an amateur radio operator and also observed intense sporadic-E propagation on July 23, during the occurrence of these NLCs." (Date of Image: July 23, 2009)

Image 2: Noctilucent clouds (or "night-shining clouds") over Mount Tabor Park, Portland, Ore., July 23, 2009.

This photo was taken by Mark Seibold, an artist, astronomer and astronomy art lecturer from Portland, Ore. Here's Seibold's first-hand account experiencing these iridescent, nighttime clouds (originally posted on www.spaceweather.com):

"I ensconced myself on top of Mount Tabor in central Portland, Ore., to render a pastel sketch of the two-day-old crescent moon, observed through a Nexstar 5i Cassegrain as one of my usual works. As I was showing the public the moon setting onto Portland's West Hills through the telescope, I noticed a strange silver light in what appeared as the north-northwest sky, lighting up with I thought was aurora borealis. I then realized that I was seeing the most amazing display of noctilucent clouds that I had ever witnessed. Perhaps my first ever. I had to drop the pastel chalks, grab the camera and take a vantage point on the slopes of the west of Mount Tabor over the large reservoir, with the city skyline to the west. It was at 10:15 p.m. PDT, an hour and a half after sunset in dark sky with only a hint of twilight glow at the horizon's edge."

IBM Unveils Breakthrough Software and New Services to Exploit Big Data

Commits $100 Million to Massive Scale Analytics Research, petabytes, intelligence

ARMONK, N.Y., - 20 May 2011: As companies seek to gain real-time insight from diverse types of data, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled new software and services to help clients more effectively gain competitive insight, optimize infrastructure and better manage resources to address Internet-scale data. For the first time, organizations can integrate and analyze tens-of-petabytes of data in its native format and gain critical intelligence in sub-second response times.

IBM also announced a $100 million investment for continued research on technologies and services that will enable clients to manage and exploit data as it continues to grow in diversity, speed and volume. The initiative will focus on research to drive the future of massive scale analytics, through advancing software, systems and services capabilities.