Noctilucent Clouds Spread and Mystify 227
Wired has a feature on noctilucent clouds, once seen only at high latitudes but increasingly visible now lower down the globe. The clouds result from ice crystals at altitudes of 50 miles, higher than five 9s of the atmosphere. What water ice is doing up there, in a region 100 million times drier than the Sahara desert, is only one of the mysteries associated with the clouds. They are a recent phenomenon: the first scientific description of noctilucent clouds was penned in 1885. For a time it was believed that the clouds were an effect resulting from the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano two years before. Since 2002, the clouds have been sighted — and photographed — as far south as Oregon, Colorado, and Utah. Some scientists believe that human-caused climate change is playing a role, but others doubt this. Two satellites are in orbit to study the clouds; NASA's AIM generated this day-by-day movie of clouds in the vicinity of the North Pole during 2008.
Re:Well there can be only one answer.... (Score:3, Funny)
Or maybe its just natures way of countering global warming..... you know like how evaporation helps cool....
If the hot water vapor left the planet, then the planet would be cooler and we'd have a water shortage to deal with. Otherwise, it's a closed system and there's no net change in temperature.
shiny clouds in the night? (Score:2, Funny)
I blame gays.
Re:The clouds are ALIVE!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Of course! There's only little fluffy clouds out there.
Re:Just a wee bit sad. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The clouds are ALIVE!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm in... (Score:3, Funny)
So when it rains, we're actually getting pissed on by Aliens.
That explains so much about the UK.
Re:Space Shuttle? (Score:5, Funny)
Further proving there were secret shuttle launches in 1885
Re:Or maybe, since temps have flatlined since '99, (Score:5, Funny)
Well, not all mankind anyway. We know because of an incontrovertible nice looking graph that pirates keep global temperatures down. As pirates have declined, temperatures have gone up.
Meanwhile, most people don't have ships, so they do the best they can pirating music. Without the ships, parrots, and peg legs, they can't be as effective as sea pirates, so they have to pirate a lot of music (latest RIAA figure: 240% of all music is pirated). The number one hindrance to their diligent efforts to cool the planet before it's too late is the RIAA. So, the RIAA is responsible for global warming, QED.
Re:Well there can be only one answer.... (Score:3, Funny)
Hot and Wet. That's good when you're with a women, it sucks when you are in the jungle.
Re:Dry? (Score:4, Funny)
AGW will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. If you are at work, it will download porn to your hard drive and the hard drives of all your co-workers.
It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.
It will give your ex-girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave dirty socks on the coffee table when company comes over. It will put a dead kitten in the back pocket of your good suit pants and hide your car keys when you are late for work.
AGW will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover card.
It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of AGW, it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.
It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your boss's voice mail in your voice. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.
AGW will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of Methamphetamines in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase gradeschoolers with your new snowblower.