from a "professional skills" course
RARE POLAR STRATOSPHERIC CLOUDS
Arctic skies are filling with color–but it's not the aurora borealis. A rare outbreak of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) is underway. Even Nilsen photographed the display from Troms, Norway
"My favorite clouds appeared this morning," says Nilsen. "It's the earliest in December I have seen them here in Northern Norway. Fantastic sight!"
Polar stratospheric clouds are a sign of extreme cold. Normally, the stratosphere has no clouds at all. PSCs form when the temperature drops to a staggeringly-low -85 C. Then, and only then, can widely-spaced water molecules in the stratosphere coalesce into tiny ice crystals. When sunlight hits these crystals, they blossom with intense iridescent color.
Sky watchers in Sweden are seeing them, too. Aurora tour guide Oliver Wright was leading a group for Lights over Lapland when the clouds appeared over
"It looked like the deer was farting rainbows," said an onlooker. Fact check: That's not how PSCs are formed.
There are actually two types of PSCs. The ones we're seeing now are harmless Type II clouds, made of pure clean water ice crystals. Type I PSCs are not so harmless. Containing both water-ice and nitric acid, they are associated with the destruction of ozone and can even presage the opening of an ozone hole. The two are easy to distinguish: Type II PSCs are very colorful, while Type I clouds tend to be wan and pale.
In most winters, the Arctic stratosphere is not cold enough for Type II PSCs until January. Seeing them in mid-December is unusual, and could herald a busy season to come.
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=11&month=12&year=2024
SOLAR STORMS ARE DRIVING FARMERS CRAZY
Planting season is a hectic time for farmers. For many, it means working through the night using GPS-guided tractors to plant thousands of acres in a short period of time. The season was in full swing on May 10, 2024, when the biggest solar storm in decades struck Earth.
"Our tractors acted like they were demon possessed," says Elaine Ramstad, a Spaceweather.com reader and aurora chaser who helps out on a family farm in Northern Minnesota. "All my cousins called me during the May 10th storm to tell me that 'my auroras' were driving them crazy while they were planting."
Modern farmers rely heavily on GPS. Guided by satellites, smart tractors can work around the clock, seeding perfectly straight rows with precise amounts of seed and fertilizer. When harvesting time comes, the tractors can return to exactly the same spots to pick the crops.
This kind of precision agriculture has become widespread. "I would guess 80% or more of all farmers in the Midwest use at least basic GPS for something–whether it's auto-steer or yield mapping," says Ethan Smidt, a service manager for John Deere. "At least 50% of all farmers are VERY reliant on GPS and use it on every machine all year long."
Solar activity poses a growing problem for farm-tech. During big solar storms, a layer of Earth's atmosphere called "the ionosphere" fills with bubbles, waves, and turbulence, which severely distort radio signals from GPS satellites. Sometimes tractors and harvesters can't lock on, which stops them in their tracks. Or the signal may be garbled, causing them to juke back and forth.
May 10th wasn't the end of it. Tractors went off-course again during the autumnal storms of Oct. 6th and 10th.
Ramstad was helping her cousins defoliate sugar beets on Oct. 6th when her tractor started acting up: "As the aurora activity began, my GPS was off by close to a foot. Twice while on Autosteer, the tractor danced a row to the left, to the right — and then the defoliator was off a row, so I had to loop around and start over. By nightfall, there was no controlling the Autosteer."
Indiana farmer Michael Spencer had a similar experience: "This fall was the first time I was able to see the aurora. My hair was standing on end from the beauty, however, it did make the John Deere tech dance. When the storms were strongest around Oct. 7th, my tractor's Autosteer system would 'jump the line'–meaning, the tractor would make a quick jolt left or right and I would have to manually reset."
It doesn't take an historic solar storm to cause problems. While the May 10th storm was a rare and extreme category G5, storms in October were much more common category G3 and G4 events. All of them sent massive pieces of hardware off course.
NASA says that Solar Maximum has arrived, and it could last for another 1 to 2 years, confusing tractors again in 2025 and 2026.
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=10&month=12&year=2024
>late 70's eatly 80's
>we had 3 clouds
>cirrus cumulus n stratus
late 70s early 80s
your pathetically inadequate education included three types of clouds
PRO TIP - there IS NO apostrophe in simple plurals
ya shoulda saved that for infinity quads
>my school also didn't teach us to be a faggot
but i bet you learned your pronouns
why you should hate wypepo
how fossil fuels will destroy earth
all cops are evil
and israel is our greatest ally
>>22148888
>Clowns = big nose and pointy hat
or sometimes the QR equivalent
a fametag like Parakletos™
>you didn't deny being a faggot tho
guess you're even too STOOPIT to read between the lines
when i went to school, humiliation was just another of the tools in the teachers' toolboxes
it's GOOD to be ashamed of your ignorance
maybe then you'll find the self-motivation to LEARN SOMETHING
yep
and yer a LAZY dumbass
and lacking the strength of character to admit errors
but just immature enough to stoop to juvenile ad hominem attacks
you seem obsessed with homosexuality
trying to tell us all something?
if it acts like an angry faggotshillbot
and types like an angry faggotshillbot
IT just might be an angry faggotshillbot
choke on a spurious voltage transient
patheticly obvious faggotshillbot
>Syrian revolutionary forces seized one of the largest drug and Captagon warehouses in Syria
another "blow" to the elites' party supplies
>House Hearing on Mysterious New Jersey Drone Sightings Call for ‘State of Emergency’
desperate attempt to create MSM distraction
must be getting close to the alien FF
holding that card 'til last
once they play it, there's no going back
no
>if white privilege exists…
if humans evolved in africa and we are all descended from black africans
how can there BE white privilege
we all black, homie
>Result of atmospheric nuclear tests in the southern hemisphere…
99% of atmospheric tests were in northern hemisphere
last friday a rock 18m in diameter and with a ∆v of 16km/s missed earth by 17,000 miles
too bad