This massive iceberg drifts off the coast of Macquarie Island south of Australia, promising tourists and beach-goers an amazing sight should it drift closer. Scientists expect the iceberg to slowly shrink and break apart in warmer ocean waters.

Large ice caps at the poles often shed large iceburgs every year, but rarely does such a large iceburg drift so near land, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.  This particular iceberg is believed to be a remnant of a larger sheet that was shed by the Ross Sea Ice shelf nearly 10 years ago.

This satellite photograph shows large icebergs calving from the larger antarctic ice sheet at the edge of the south pole.

The group of icebergs were thought to be heading to New Zealand but have now been blown off course.  That has not stopped a group of Australians who are determined to cash-in by trying to set up a floating bar on one of the icebergs.

The iceberg that has drifted toward Macquarie Island has taken a long path to get there. While it is proving quite a sight for islanders, scientists expect it to slowly shrink and break up in warmer ocean waters as the southern hemisphere summer looms.

The Australian Meteorology Bureau went as far as issuing a shipping alert late last week as a massive iceberg was drifting within 1000 miles of the southwestern coast of the country. This followed New Zealand’s similar alerts late last month when a slew of icebergs headed toward South Island, New Zealand.  Those have since drifted away from land.

A massive iceberg drifts off the southern coast of Australia, promising tourists and beach-goers an amazing sight should it drift closer. Scientists expect the iceberg to slowly shrink and break apart in warmer ocean waters.

The largest iceberg is 12 miles long and 5 miles wide.  It is slowly drifting northeast toward Western Australia state.

Like others that have come before it, it is expected that this iceberg will break up as it enters warmer ocean waters.  Such events are not entirely uncommon and scientists state that such a singular event cannot be definitively tied to climate change.

This alarming sprialing light was photographed over Norway on December 9, 2009. Source: http://www.vg.no/

Upon first glance, many would think the image is simply a creation of an eager photoshop student, but the reports have been validated by hundreds of people who saw the same object.  Video clips have emerged to further substantiate the still images.

This alarming sprialing light was photographed over Norway on December 9, 2009.

It is believed that the spiral was caused by a malfunctioning Russian rocket that was launched from a submarine.  Military experts state that the spiraling nature of the light is characteristic of a rocket-propelled object that is not functioning as planned.

This image shows the aftermath of the strange spiralling light that was spotted over Norway on December 9, 2009. The wispy white trail supports the theory that the light was caused by a malfunctioning rocket.

SpaceWeather.com reports that a “no-fly” order was issued for the area on December 9th which would correspond to the period in which the Russian military may have been testing an inter-continental ballistic missile.

File image of a land-based mobile Russian inter-continental balistic missile (ICBM).

This explanation has not been confirmed by the Russian government, although it seems the most plausible given the images and video clips that have emerged.  Regardless of the cause, one thing is certain:  it caused quite an alarm not only for Norwegian residents, but people around the world.

Update [12/10/09:  08:15]:

The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed the Russian Navy launched a Bulava ballistic missile on December 9, but will not officially confirm the missile as the cause of the spiral lights seen over Norway.

File: The Russian submarine Dmitry Donskoi launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on the morning of December 9, 2009.

The Russian Navy confirmed the missile was fired from the “Dmitry Donskoi” nuclear submarine (shown above), but would not confirm the submarine’s location at the time of launch.

Snow blankets a stretch of the Great Wall of China in this file photo. Chinese Government officials have claimed recent successes in seeding clouds to produce snowfall in and around Beijing as a means of alleviating drought.

While the seeding efforts were localized to the Beijing region, snowfall was reported in several provinces, including Liaoning,Jilin and Hebei.  Chinese media reports government officials as hailing the efforts as a success.  “We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought,” the report quoted Zhang Qiang, head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, as saying.

This effort comes on the heals of other claims of weather modification successes.  Moscow recently declared it would enjoy a winter without snow, as cloud seeding efforts were underway aimed at forming precipitation outside of city limits.  It is hoped that such efforts would sap the clouds of significant moisture before the clouds moved over Moscow, thus reducing the headaches caused by Moscow’s traditionally heavy urban snowfall.

Cloud seeding efforts aimed at producing precipitation has had a long, checkered history around the world.  While China is employing these efforts to alleviate a substantial drought, other similar precipitation-inducing efforts have been attempted as a means of weakening hurricanes, causing precipitation to fall earlier or outside of a given region, and enhancing snowfall on ski slopes.

This is not the first time the state-run media has made such a claim.  In 2008, the Chinese government openly acknowledged weather modification efforts aimed at reducing smog pollution before and during the Olympic Games.  While the smog was significantly reduced during the games, such results could not be specifically tied to the weather modification efforts, as other smog-reduction efforts were simultaneously employed, such as substantially reducing vehicular traffic in the city.

More recently, China induced snowfall in a similar manner last winter, resulting in highway closures and stranding of thousands of travelers.

Snow blankets the center of Moscow in this file photo from 2007. If the mayor of Moscow has his way, the city will look much different this winter.

The mayor of Moscow has pledged his full support to a plan to seed the clouds upwind from Moscow as a means of encouraging precipitation to fall from the clouds before they reach Moscow.  It is his hope that the clouds that then blanket the city will not result in the usual heavy winter snowfalls Moscow is so well known for.

The Mayor is planning to spend several million dollars to pay the Russian Air Force to fly over the city and spray a fine mist of particulate matter into the clouds.  The hope is that the particles that are sprayed will cause moisture to quickly condense on them, forming small cloud droplets or snowflakes much sooner than they would normally form.  This “fast-forwaring” of the snow-making process would cause the clouds to create snow that would then fall to the ground before the clouds ever arrived in Moscow.  The mayor contends such efforts would save the city millions in snow-removal costs and the quality of life improvement would be immeasurable.

Just last week, a mysterious cloud formation was spotted over Moscow.  Referred to as a “halo cloud” or a “UFO cloud,” the rare formation likely had a much more innocuous title as a “hole punch cloud.”  The cloud was filmed and the images quickly spread across the web, creating quite a buzz about its cause.  As reported earlier by MeteorologyNews.com, the cloud was likely a simple hole punch cloud, whose origins are somewhat mysterious, although several theories support the notion that such clouds form when a cloud is comprised of ice crystals and super-cooled water droplets that are disturbed.  The disturbance causes a quick transformation of the super-cooled droplets into ice which clings to existing ice particles and floats to the ground or sublimates.  The quick dissipation of the water droplets creates a void, or hole.

It thus seems reasonable that the disturbance that caused last week’s hole punch cloud could reasonably be assumed to have been efforts by the Russian Air Force to test out its most recent cloud-seeding efforts in anticipation of the upcoming winter.  The Russian military has offered no confirmation of such suspicion.

It was recently reported that Mayor Yury Luzhkov is no stranger to such grand efforts to manipulate nature. In 2007, the Russian government made a similar attempt at cloud seeding by dropping cement dust into clouds.  But that attempt led to disastrous results:  one bag of cement dust failed to dissipate in the cloud, instead falling to earth and crashing through the roof of a house.  In 2002, he led a project to reverse the flow of the River Ob in Siberia in an effort to help irrigate the region’s agricultural zones.  Scientists have responded that such efforts were impractical, although such failures have not stopped Luzhkov from trying his hand at further manipulations of mother nature.

Such cloud seeding efforts are not new.  Going back to World War II, many countries have attempted to seed the clouds to either generate precipitation where it was needed or to prevent precipitation where it is unwanted.  As recently as early 2008, it was rumored that the Chinese government was planning such weather modification efforts as a means of scouring the air of smog prior to the Olympic Games, as well as ensuring rain-free days for outdoor sporting events.  It is unclear if such efforts were employed or if they were successful.

A "hole punch cloud" as seen over Moscow last week. Such clouds are rare and awe-inspiring as their cause is still somewhat mysterious.

Hole punch clouds are often attention-grabbers, as they are relatively rare.  When they do form, they tend to persist and are large enough to be seen for miles around.

The foundation of a hole punch cloud is traditionally a mid- or high-altitude cloud type such as cirrus or cirro-stratus.  Such clouds generally form above 20,000 feet or so in the atmosphere.  The National Weather Service has explained that such clouds are frequently composed of both ice crystals and super-cooled water droplets – water that is below the freezing temperature but still exists in liquid form.  When such a delicate balance occurs, only a slight disruption of this delicate balance may lead to a striking result.

This hole punch cloud is a particularly vibrant example of both the foundational cloud form and the evaporation of the water droplets in the surrounding environment. Some hold punch clouds are even referred to as "crop circles in the sky."

A hole punch cloud photographed over Alabama in 2003. Photo Source: Gary Beeler, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, National Weather Service Mobile, Alabama.

Frequently, the ice crystals may slowly grow and expand at the expense of the liquid droplets.  But when the balance is disrupted, the droplets may freeze instantly and thus permit the liquid droplets in the environment to evaporate, resulting in a “hole” in the cloud.

Another hole punch cloud, this one photographed over Colorado in 2007. Photo source: Colorado Uerlings: http://www.neatorama.com

It is believed that a cloud may be disrupted in this manner when a a jet flies through the thin cloud layer.  Such a disruption may spur the quick freezing of liquid droplets and evaporation of other droplets.  This would create the void in the space in which the jet passed through the layer.

While the source of hole punch clouds may be somewhat uncertain, they are certain to cause quite a vigorous discussion.

UPDATE (10/19/09):  The cause of the Moscow hole punch cloud may have been discovered:  cloud seeding.  See Moscow Testing Cloud Seeding; Promises Winter Without Snow.

Wind turbines along the Buffalo Ridge in rural southwest Minnesota (2004)

A relatively new wind energy farm in central Wisconsin has created a newly-discovered, puzzling side effect:  interference with the local National Weather Service doppler radar.

The Butler Ridge wind farm was constructed in February of this year and contains a total of 36 wind turbines, each standing about 300 feet above ground level.  These windmills were build on a ridge line that is about 1100 feet above sea level, placing the turbines in an optimal location to benefit from the highest wind speeds in the region.  Coincidentally, the location is in the sight of the local doppler radar tower in Sullivan, WI that is approximately 30 miles south of the wind farm.

This image from April 1, 2009 displays the location and reflecdtivity of the wind farm 30 miles north of the radar site. Credit: NOAA

Doppler radar functions to detect atmospheric phenomena by sending out an electromagnetic signal and simultaneously “listening” for the signal to return if it is bounced off of an object.  Many objects will reflect the radar beam, most notably rain droplets, ice crystals, and snowflakes.  But as we reported earlier this year, doppler radar can also detect bats, birds, aircraft, surface traffic, and even tragedies like 9/11 and the Columbia disaster.  They are even believed to have the potential to alter the weather.

In the case of the Butler Ridge wind farm, the radar beam is being reflected by the large blades on the spinning turbines.  This electromagnetic energy is then reflected back to the radar dome and the radar detects the object.  The turbine blades then appear on the radar image.  This seemingly innocuous interference could have significant ramifications in the upcoming severe weather season though.

This image from the National Weather Service demonstrates how wind turbines can be mistaken for storms on doppler radar. Credit: NOAA

Doppler radar is arguably one of the most critical tools at the disposal of the National Weather Service when they look to provide timely watches and warnings of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.  By examining the output of doppler radars, meteorologists are able to detect and forecast thunderstorms that may become severe and where they may track.  But if the radar image is masked by interference such as the wind turbines, it is feared that severe weather watches and warnings may be less robust.

The National Weather Service Radar Operations Center has enlisted the help of the wind energy industry to try to alleviate these problems in the future by locating the wind farms in places that would not interfere with such radar signals.  They have published an extensive analysis of the problem.  The map below displays the locations (in red) of the doppler radar sites that may be impacted.  The yellow regions are those in which the radar beam travels close enough to the ground that it could be impacted by windmills constructed in those regions.

This map displays the locations of all National Weather Service radar locations (red) and the regions in which the radar beam is low enough to the ground that it may be impacted by windmills (yellow). Credit: NOAA

Meteorologists may be able to write software code that is able to filter out this interference, but such work can be costly and time-consuming.  The primary concern is that filtering the data to remove such interference may also increase the risk of filtering out true radar echoes – those of actual storms that must be detected for public safety.

With the mushrooming popularity of wind energy around the country, this problem is one that is sure to warrant further study and creative mitigation attempts.

A crippling duststorm shrouded the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday, halting transportation for hours. (Credit: Jad Saab/AP)

Airport traffic was halted completely for over three hours while the dust settled and the air cleared, allowing planes to again arrive and depart without disruption.

The storm was actually sufficiently forecast as to allow public schools to be closed in sufficient time to permit students to get home safely ahead of the storm.

Sandstorms are caused by strong winds blowing over dry, loose sand and soil, picking up enough of the sand and soil such that the air is filled and visibility is substantially reduced.

The Saudi Arabian capital city of Riyadh was blasted by an intense sand storm this week, dropping visibility to zero and bringing transportation to a standstill after causing dozens of automobile accidents and other disruptions.

Hot and dry conditions that are frequent in the Arabian Peninsula routinely create the type of atmospheric instability that lends itself well to sandstorms.  When the soil and sand are dry, they heat up much more quickly under intense sunlight.  Such rapid heating causes air close to the ground to rise rapidly into the upper levels of the atmosphere, sweeping the sand and soil to higher altitudes.

A Saudi covers his face with his traditional headdress as the sandstorm colors the sky. Source: AP

While such sandstorms were more frequent in the drought-stricken areas of the 1930’s dust bowl era, they are much more rare today as widespread agricultural irrigation has reduced the overall areal coverage of soil that can sufficiently dry to create the conditions necessary for a dust storm.  The smaller scale events that may still occur in the desert southwest are often referred to as dust storms in the United States.

A crippling duststorm shrouded the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday, halting transportation for hours. (Credit: AP).

The American Groundhog - part of an American weather forecasting tradition for decades.

This morning, Punxsatawney Phil emerged from his den and saw his shadow, indicating 6 more weeks of winter are in store.  The nation’s most famous groundhog emerged just after dawn in front of about 13,000 witnesses, many dressed in black-and-gold to celebrate the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Super Bowl victory the night before.

Ben Hughes, handler of the weather-predicting groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, holds Phil in the air after removing him from his stump at Gobbler's Knob on Groundhog Day, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009, in Punxsutawney, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

As legend tells it, if the groundhog emerges from its burrow and fails to see its shadow because the sky is cloudy, winter will soon come to an end. Alternatively, if it is sunny and the groundhog sees its shadow, the groundhog will supposedly retreat into its burrow, and winter will continue for six more weeks.

The annual ritual takes place on Gobbler’s Knob, a tiny hill in Punxsutawney, a borough of about 6,100 residents some 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

More interesting facts about America’s favorite prognosticator:

• Groundhog Day has been celebrated since 1887. According to tradition, if a groundhog sees its shadow upon emerging from its burrow that day, there will be six more weeks of winter.  If not, spring is on its way.
• The groundhog, or woodchuck, is one of 14 species of marmots. They are common in the northeastern and central United States.
• Weighing 4 pounds to 14 pounds and reaching about 2 feet in length, groundhogs can move about 700 pounds of dirt when digging a burrow for winter hibernation.
• The largest Groundhog Day celebration is in Punxsutawney, Pa., which draws crowds of up to 40,000 people to Gobbler’s Knob every Feb. 2 to watch Punxsutawney Phil do his thing.
• City residents claim the groundhog has never been wrong, although few empirical studies have supported the claim.
• About 90 percent of the time, Phil sees his shadow.
• According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, Phil has been making predictions for more than 120 years now, buoyed by sips of “the elixir of life.”

For more information on Groundhog Day or to view Phil’s prediction, go to www.groundhog.org.

The WSR-88D doppler radar out of Norman Oklahoma captured this image of smoke resulting from wildfires. Credit: National Weather Service

Several large grassland fires burned along the central Kansas/Oklahoma border.  Strong winds from the southwest helped fan the flames, blowing miles-long plumes of smoke to relatively high altitudes.  As the fires burned, the doppler radar stationed in Norman, Oklahoma was actually able to detect the smoke plumes as they drifted to the northeast.

One massive grass fire covered 16 square miles and burned throughout the afternoon and early evening near Crescent in Logan County.

Five wildfires also burned in Woodward and Harper counties. Woodward Fire Chief Steve Day says the largest blaze, near Selman, charred approximately 12,000 acres.

UPDATE 04/10/09:  The April Wildfires were also detected by meteorology technology:  See how the larger April fires were visible from space.

Wind turbines such as these along the Buffalo Ridge in rural southwest Minnesota (2004) may alter large-scale wind flow over land.

Wind turbines are quickly becoming the favorite green energy source of many nations the world over as they are often considered to be virtually zero-impact.  But current research indicates wind turbines may not be as green as once thought.

Wind turbines do not block rivers or inhibit migratory species as hydroelectric dams do.  They do not emit greenhouse gasses or exhaust our dwindling supplies of nonrenewable resources such as oil or coal.  Wind turbines  generate seemingly unlimited, clean energy.  While some research has indicated wind turbines may have harmful effects on birds or other unintended consequences on the environment, most of these have been generally excused as minimal or otherwise disputed compared to the relative benefits of wind energy.  But a team of researchers from the University of Maryland have found that large-scale use of wind turbines as a power source may have an impact on our environment directly opposite that which they purport to minimize:  Climate change.

Altering air flow and wind patterns

Conservative estimates are that it would take at least a quarter-million wind turbines to meet the United States’ energy needs.  Installation of such an enormous array of wind turbines would have a profound impact on the atmospheric wind flow over the surface of the United States and perhaps even other nations.

Scientists Daniel Barrie and Daniel Kirk-Davidoff of the University of Maryland have shown that installation of a massive wind farm covering the bulk of the central United States into central Canada would effectively “steal” energy from the atmosphere.  As anyone who has studied basic physics may recall, in a closed system such as the Earth’s atmosphere, energy is conserved, that is, it cannot be created or destroyed.  As air flows through the blades of a gigantic, 300-foot wind turbine tower, the wind energy turns the blades.  This energy is robbed from the atmosphere, effectively slowing the wind speed proportionally.  The greater the array of wind turbines, the more energy is removed from the atmospheric flow and the slower the ambient wind will travel.  Slowing wind speeds by 5 or 6 miles per hour – while it sounds negligible, could have significant impacts on the large-scale atmospheric flow and yield consequences we do not yet understand.

Altering Ocean Currents

An offshore wind farm such as this one may have profound impacts not only on the air flow, but also on the ocean currents beneath the surface.

In another recent project on the impacts of wind power on our environment, Goran Brostrom of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Oslo has published research indicating that offshore wind farms, while perhaps less unsightly and intrusive than their land-based counterparts, may have a small yet profound impact on ocean currents in their wake.

When air flows through wind turbine blades, the path that the flow takes is slightly altered.  The net result is that there is turbulence down wind from the turbine blades.  When this turbulence occurs, rather than the ordinary laminar flow, the surface of the ocean is impacted.  This turbulence over the ocean water can cause a phenomenon known as upwelling whereby deeper ocean water is drawn up to the surface as surface water is driven down to replace it.  When the ocean “turns over” in this manner temperature flow within the body of water is altered.  Altering the upwelling patterns of an otherwise undisturbed body of water may have impacts on the currents that naturally exist as part of the large-scale flow.  As with the atmospheric air flow impacts of large-scale wind farms, the overall impact of increased ocean current upwelling is not fully understood.