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Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2005
| Title |
Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2005 |
| Abstract |
A relatively warm Antarctic winter in 2005 kept the thinning of the protective ozone layer over Antarctica, known as the 'ozone hole', slightly smaller than in 2004. The ozone hole is not technically a 'hole' where no ozone is present, but is actually a region of exceptionally depleted ozone in the stratosphere over the Antarctic that happens at the beginning of Southern Hemisphere spring (August-October). The average concentration of ozone in the atmosphere is about 300 Dobson Units, any area where the concentration drops below 220 Dobson Units is considered part of the ozone hole. Each year the 'hole' expands over Antarctica, sometimes reaching populated areas of South America and exposing them to ultraviolet rays normally absorbed by ozone. The data in these omages were acquired by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite. On September 11, 2005, ozone thinning over Antarctica reached its maximum extent for the year at 27 millions of square kilometers. On October 1, 2005 the minimum ozone value was recorded at 102 Dobson Units. |
| Completed |
2005-11-01 |
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Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2005
| Title |
Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2005 |
| Abstract |
A relatively warm Antarctic winter in 2005 kept the thinning of the protective ozone layer over Antarctica, known as the 'ozone hole', slightly smaller than in 2004. The ozone hole is not technically a 'hole' where no ozone is present, but is actually a region of exceptionally depleted ozone in the stratosphere over the Antarctic that happens at the beginning of Southern Hemisphere spring (August-October). The average concentration of ozone in the atmosphere is about 300 Dobson Units, any area where the concentration drops below 220 Dobson Units is considered part of the ozone hole. Each year the 'hole' expands over Antarctica, sometimes reaching populated areas of South America and exposing them to ultraviolet rays normally absorbed by ozone. The data in these omages were acquired by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite. On September 11, 2005, ozone thinning over Antarctica reached its maximum extent for the year at 27 millions of square kilometers. On October 1, 2005 the minimum ozone value was recorded at 102 Dobson Units. |
| Completed |
2005-11-01 |
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Hurricane Stan
| Title |
Hurricane Stan |
| Description |
Despite hitting a relatively remote section of the Mexican coastline as a Category 1 hurricane, Stan's effects were felt across the region as 49 people died in El Salvador as a result of mudslides brought on by related storms. A total of 65 people perished across the entire region as a result of Stan. Stan became the 18th named storm of an extremely active 2005 hurricane season on October 1, 2005, just east of the Yucatan Peninsula in the far western Caribbean. Moving west, Stan quickly made landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula, which it traversed as a weak tropical storm. After re-emerging over warm water in the Bay of Campeche, Stan turned to the southwest and began to intensify. The storm, however, did not have much room to grow over water before encountering the Mexican coastline and so made landfall south of Vera Cruz, Mexico, as a Category 1 hurricane. The image above shows observations obtained from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) at 10:05 UTC (6:05 am EDT) on October 4. It shows Stan making landfall along the coast of Vera Cruz, Mexico. A band of intense rain (dark red areas) is visible as part of the eastern eyewall, with additional heavy rain associated with an outer rain band located just offshore along the coast. At the time of the image, Stan was a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds reported at 120 kilometers per hour (75 miles per hour) by the National Hurricane Center. The TRMM satellite has been measuring rainfall over the tropics since its launch in 1997. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Image produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and captioned by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC). |
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Hurricane Stan Floods Centra
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| Title |
Hurricane Stan Floods Central America |
| Description |
By standard measures, Stan was a small storm. It formed as a tropical depression on October 1, 2005, and barely reached hurricane status before going ashore in southern Mexico on October 4. In the intervening period, the storm moved over the Yucatan Peninsula, drenching Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico with heavy rain. Though the winds never reached more than 130 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour), the storm proved to be one of the most devastating since Hurricane Mitch struck the region in 1998. Stan dropped heavy rains on parts of Central America for several days, triggering deadly floods and landslides. This image, made using data collected by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM [ http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ]) satellite between September 29 and October 5, 2005, shows rainfall totals over the affected countries. The highest rainfall is shown in deep red, while the lightest is in blue. The rainfall data is laid over a topographical map. As this image illustrates, the rain fell over steep mountains. The water released sections of earth, and both water and mud flooded the populated valleys. Floods and mudslides forced thousands from their homes and damaged roads and bridges throughout the region. News reports claim that more than 100 people have died in the floods, but differ on the exact number. The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center provides estimates of rainfall over the global Tropics. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. NASA image produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC). |
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Eruption of Santa Ana (Ilama
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| Title |
Eruption of Santa Ana (Ilamatepec) Volcano |
| Description |
On October 1, 2005, El Salvador's Santa Ana, or Ilamatepec, Volcano erupted for the first time since 1904. Besides ash, lava, rocks as big as cars, and a boiling flood of muddy water, Santa Ana's eruption produced something else: sulfur dioxide. This invisible gas can inflame mucous membranes of the eyes, skin, and upper respiratory tract. It also leads to acid rain and volcanic smog (vog) that interferes with air transport. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura [ http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html ] satellite collects data on atmospheric chemistry, including sulfur dioxide emissions from volcanoes. This image combines OMI's observations of the Santa Ana Volcano taken on October 1 and 2, 2005. In this image of Central America, black triangles indicate volcanoes. Sulfur dioxide concentrations are color coded, with highest concentrations in red, and lowest concentrations in pale pink. Near the Santa Ana Volcano hovers a thick cloud of sulfur dioxide, this is the emission cloud as it appeared on October 1. To the left is a dispersed cloud, this is how the same cloud appeared on October 2 as the gas drifted westward over the Pacific, having lost half of its sulfur dioxide mass. The total cloud mass on October 1 was estimated at 10,000 tons, a relatively small eruption. Recent examples of much larger eruptions include Manam [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16820 ] on January 27-28, 2005, and Anatahan [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=12854 ] on April 5-6, 2005. The OMI instrument is a Dutch-Finnish Instrument, provided to the EOS/Aura mission by The Netherlands and Finland. NIVR (the Dutch space agency) is the overall program manager, in coordination with FMI (the Finnish Meteorological Institute). The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) is the Principal Investigator institute. NASA image courtesy Simon Carn, Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology [ http://www.jcet.umbc.edu/ ] (JCET), University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) |
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Monsoon Flooding in India
| Title |
Monsoon Flooding in India |
| Description |
The Ganga (Ganges) River and its tributaries were swollen with late monsoon rains when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on October 1, 2005. Torrential rains pounded northern India and Nepal through much of the second half of September 2005. The subsequent floods and landslides killed dozens in the two countries combined. These two images show the progression of the floods through northern India. Though severe flooding occurred in Nepal, it is not visible in these images. The lower image shows the rivers on September 20, four days after the floods began. In the false-color images, water is dark blue, clouds are pale blue, and vegetation is bright green. On September 20, the upper reaches of the Ganga and Ramganga Rivers are flooded compared to their state on October 1. By October 1, the flood water had moved downstream, gathering at the convergence of the two rivers. The Sarda and Ghagra Rivers are also larger than they were ten days earlier. NASA images courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Monsoon Flooding in India
| Title |
Monsoon Flooding in India |
| Description |
The Ganga (Ganges) River and its tributaries were swollen with late monsoon rains when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on October 1, 2005. Torrential rains pounded northern India and Nepal through much of the second half of September 2005. The subsequent floods and landslides killed dozens in the two countries combined. These two images show the progression of the floods through northern India. Though severe flooding occurred in Nepal, it is not visible in these images. The lower image shows the rivers on September 20, four days after the floods began. In the false-color images, water is dark blue, clouds are pale blue, and vegetation is bright green. On September 20, the upper reaches of the Ganga and Ramganga Rivers are flooded compared to their state on October 1. By October 1, the flood water had moved downstream, gathering at the convergence of the two rivers. The Sarda and Ghagra Rivers are also larger than they were ten days earlier. NASA images courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Typhoon Longwang
| Title |
Typhoon Longwang |
| Description |
Typhoon Longwang, which means "dragon king" in Mandarin, became the third super typhoon this year to hit Taiwan and continue on to make landfall in China. The other two super typhoons of 2005 were Haitang and Talim. After traversing the Philippine Sea, Longwang plowed over Taiwan on October 2, 2005, where winds were recorded up to 230 kilometers per hour (143 mph). The storm left one person missing and one dead in Taiwan. Longwang then continued moving across the Taiwan straight and struck Fujian Province in southeast China. Three people were reported killed, and 59 police cadets were missing after flood waters swept away their buildings. This image of Longwang was captured by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite on October 1, 2005, at 20:27 UTC, just as the center of the storm was making landfall on the eastern coast of Taiwan. The western half of the eyewall is already over the coast while the center sits just offshore. A sizeable area of very intense rain (dark red area) is present in the eastern half of the eyewall. At the time, Longwang was still a Category 4 typhoon with sustained winds of 115 knots (132 mph). After crossing Taiwan, the storm would later weaken to a Category 1 typhoon before hitting mainland China. The TRMM satellite has been measuring rainfall over the tropics since its launch in 1997. The TRMM-based, near-real time MPA at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center provides estimates of rainfall over the global tropics. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Image produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and captioned by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC). |
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Typhoon Longwang
| Title |
Typhoon Longwang |
| Description |
Longwang means Dragon King (the God of Rain) in Chinese. Typhoon Longwang was living up to its namesake when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image at 2:05 p.m. local time, on October 1, 2005. At that time, Longwang had peak sustained winds of 230 kilometers per hour (145 miles per hour), slightly less than the peak winds two days earlier, a pattern that suggests that Longwang had reached a stable state and was no longer gaining strength. It also has a "closed eye" ("i.e.," the eye of the storm has some cloud cover), another indicator of a storm no longer building additional power. In the days following this image, Longwang cut directly across the middle of Taiwan, and early in the morning on October 2, made a second landfall in mainland China as a severe storm. The large image provided above has a resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The image is available in additional resolutions [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2005274-1001/Longwang.A2005274.0505 ] from the MODIS Rapid Response Team. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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