#meteorology

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Antarctica (September 21st, 2005).  The terrain and cloud cover are taken from images in 2004 and 20

Antarctica (September 21st, 2005).  The terrain and cloud cover are taken from images in 2004 and 2002 respectively.

The Antarctic is in some ways the opposite of the Arctic.  The Arctic is an ocean basin surrounded by land, whereas the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by water.

In the Northern Hemisphere, sea ice can extend southwards to a latitude of 45°N (along the north-east coasts of Asia and North America), but most of the ice is above 70°N.  In the Southern Hemisphere, the ice doesn’t get that close to the South Pole.  It fringes the continent, and extends northwards to 55°S at its greatest extent.

Because of this, Antarctic sea ice coverage is larger in winter than in the Arctic, but smaller in summer.  Total Antarctic sea ice peaks in September (beginning of spring) to a historical extent of 17 – 20 million square kilometres.  The minimum extent is in February (end of summer), at about 3 – 4 million square kilometres.

Antarctic sea ice is distributed around the entire fringe of the continent, a much broader area than in the Arctic.  It is also exposed to a broader range of land, ocean and atmospheric influences.  Because of this geographic and climate diversity, the Antarctic sea ice is more variable from year to year.  Climate oscillations don’t affect all areas in the same way.  Therefore, it is more difficult to make overall generalizations about the influence of climate patterns here.

The Antarctic Oscillation involves a large-scale “see-sawing” of atmospheric mass between the pole and mid-latitudes.  This oscillation can intensify, weaken, or shift the location of low- and high-pressure weather systems.  These changes influence wind speeds, temperature, and the track that storms tend to follow.  Any of these things can influence sea ice extent.

During a “positive phase”, the westerly winds circling Antarctica strengthen and move southwards (inwards).  This can change the way ice is distributed among the sectors.  It also isolates much of the Antarctic atmosphere.

These stronger winds have an overall cooling effect, but also cause a dramatic warming on the Antarctic Peninsula.  This is because warmer air above the oceans to the north is drawn southwards (inwards).  In general, these winds can lessen sea ice in some areas and increase it in others, because it can drive the ice further away from the coast or closer towards it, depending on the region.


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Shut up everyone new weather dropped

meteorology
Fallstreak holes, or hole punch clouds, are formed when the water in the air has been super cooled bFallstreak holes, or hole punch clouds, are formed when the water in the air has been super cooled bFallstreak holes, or hole punch clouds, are formed when the water in the air has been super cooled b

Fallstreak holes, or hole punch clouds, are formed when the water in the air has been super cooled but has not frozen. When it does finally freeze, it starts a chain reaction and the frozen water falls from the cloud. 


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JUST A HEAT ENGINE-PART 4The next page of the comic where the avatar of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1JUST A HEAT ENGINE-PART 4The next page of the comic where the avatar of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1

JUST A HEAT ENGINE-PART 4

The next page of the comic where the avatar of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 sings about how awesome being a hurricane is. (And to the tune of “Comet” from Steven Universe…because for some reason when I heard that song my mind was immediately like “this would be even cooler if it was about a category 5 hurricane bragging about himself.”)

Labor Day definitely thinks his life is a very entertaining and wild ride, but the exhausted sooty terns on the bottom panel probably disagree after having been thrown around his eyewall.

Seabirds becoming trapped inside hurricanes is a real phenomenon, and sometimes they end up being blown hundreds of miles inland. There are photographs of ships in the eye of a storm being mobbed by hordes of tired birds looking for a place to rest their wings.


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JUST A HEAT ENGINE -Part 3Another part of the “Just a Heat Engine” series of comics…that alsoJUST A HEAT ENGINE -Part 3Another part of the “Just a Heat Engine” series of comics…that also

JUST A HEAT ENGINE -Part 3

Another part of the “Just a Heat Engine” series of comics…that also took way too long to get around to making.

Been overwhelmed with research, learning to use machine learning to do more research, and dealing with the fallout of the big winter storm (”Where’d the mold and water damage come from? A flood?” “No, from a busted pipe -_-”)

But anyways, here’s the next part of the comic, in which I took the song “Comet” from Steven Universe and turned it into a song about the 1935 Labor Day hurricane singing about himself because…

…reasons.

I should note that the white hurricane is still Labor Day, just his “full size” form. The natural disaster characters have a dog-sized form they use to interact one-on-one with people and animals, and a regular-size form they use when just doing disastery stuff. 

The “Storms of the Century” sidebar is a reference to an old Weather Channel special from 1999 where they had a bunch of their weather people rank what they thought were the biggest, baddest storms to hit the U.S. in the 20th century. The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane won, which given it was the strongest hurricane at landfall to hit the U.S.*, is pretty reasonable.

*His air pressure and wind speed is shown in the digital display display from his…smartwatch? Yes the hurricane wears a watch…so it’s a…(wait for it)…hurricane watch.


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2021 has been rather overwhelming so far.The recent Texas winter hasn’t helped much on that front is

2021 has been rather overwhelming so far.

The recent Texas winter hasn’t helped much on that front is just the icing on the cake just added to that.

Feels weird that I now have suffered more damage from a winter storm than from Ike or Harvey…

But I guess that is our signal as a society that we need to be prepared even for the things that don’t seem as scary at first glance…


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MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM INSIDE THE EVENT HORIZONThe weather outside is frightfulbut the latent heat is

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM INSIDE THE EVENT HORIZON

The weather outside is frightful

but the latent heat is delightful

*fwoosh*


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JUST A HEAT ENGINE–TWOHere’s the second page of the comic involving the Labor Day Hurricane of

JUST A HEAT ENGINE–TWO

Here’s the second page of the comic involving the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 strumming on a guitarfish. I imagine he has a hobby of writing and performing rock ballads, which is not at all the sort of hobby you would expect from a Category 5 hurricane with a mindset that weather is warfare. 

The song is basically a rip-off parody of “Comet” from Steven Universe but I imagine Labor Day’s singing voice to be closer to Billy Joel. Either way, it’s very much nicer than his usual voice, which is basically a cross between drill-sergeant yelling and a freight train.


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JUST A HEAT ENGINE—1Labor Day might be a very ferocious hurricane, with the ability to scour i

JUST A HEAT ENGINE—1

Labor Day might be a very ferocious hurricane, with the ability to scour islands of their sand and then kill people with it, but he also shreds a mean guitarfish.

…this is the first page of a multi-page comic I am working on. I will add the rest over time (as my thesis allows).


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JUST A HEAT ENGINE-PART 5The final page of the comic series where the avatar of the Labor Day HurricJUST A HEAT ENGINE-PART 5The final page of the comic series where the avatar of the Labor Day Hurric

JUST A HEAT ENGINE-PART 5

The final page of the comic series where the avatar of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 sings a parody of “Comet” from Steven Universe.

People are probably not in the mood for silly hurricane comics after Ida, but I was working on finishing this one from before the storm happened. And after I completely blanked out on the whole “the San Andreas Fault runs for president” story arc after page 18, I really wanted to have at least one comic series colored and finished.

In these two pages, Labor Day is singing about how hurricanes are essentially Carnot heat engines, entities that draw their power from the difference in temperature between the ocean and the upper atmosphere. Hurricanes are immense heat-transport machines, and are thought to play an important role in the transfer of heat and water in the Earth’s atmosphere and hydrosphere. 

But of course, this mechanism of power, so dependent on high evaporation rates at the ocean’s surface, means that hurricanes, in spite of their power, are rather delicate things. Once they hit land, they rapidly die like a giant beached fish. It is only in the most particular of environments that they are able to maintain the overwhelming force they are known for.

For this reason, the life of a hurricane is short. A rapid rise, a brief moment of category 5 glory, and then a cataclysmic fall. I was trying to capture that in this series…though more from the hurricane’s perspective than from the human perspective.


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The shocking facts about lightning strikesReprinted (slightly condensed) from Mother Nature Network

The shocking facts about lightning strikes
Reprinted (slightly condensed) from Mother Nature Network

Here are some facts that will make you think twice about going outside during thunderstorms.

  1. Lightning is extremely hot. A bolt of lightning can heat the air around it to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is five times hotter than the surface of the sun!
  2. Lightning isn’t only a product of a thunderstorm. The discharge of electricity through lightning can happen in hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, and even dust storms and heavy snowstorms.
  3. You aren’t necessarily safe from lightning if you’re outside the radius of a storm. Lightning often strikes more than 3 miles from the center of a storm and can strike 10-15 miles (or even farther!) from a storm’s center. So even if you’re far from any clouds, you might still be hit by a “bolt from the blue.”
  4. The odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime are about 1 in 3,000. While it is possible to survive a lightning strike, victims often have severe and lasting injuries ranging from burns to brain damage and even personality changes.
  5. It is estimated that lightning strikes the Earth around 100 times per second, with about 70 percent of the strikes occur in the tropics.

And yet cloud-to-ground lightning only accounts for about 25 percent of lightning flashes — cloud-to-cloud and intra-cloud lightning are more common. 

Photo: Donald Quintana / MNN Flickr Group 


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Bad weather.Combined a few elements into a weather map of sorts.

Bad weather.

Combined a few elements into a weather map of sorts.


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Bad prediction.Playing with combining flocking and the weather map aesthetic. Needs some temperature

Bad prediction.

Playing with combining flocking and the weather map aesthetic. Needs some temperature emoji and air pressure contour lines.


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Bad weather.A cold front is crossing two heat waves with a purple haze throughout.

Bad weather.

A cold front is crossing two heat waves with a purple haze throughout.


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