NASA Peers Into the Eye of a 'Super Typhoon'

[DFighter]

A trio of images from NASA MISR equipment

Credit: Joshua Stevens and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory, data from NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team
 

The swirling mass of white clouds, the placid eye of the storm: Satellite imagery has become common enough that it's easy to envision the whorl of a typhoon as seen from space. But that mental picture likely doesn't include such details as the relative air temperatures, or just how strong the wind is blowing.

NASA's Earth Observatory recently released satellite images, taken with three different instruments, of Super Typhoon Nepartak as it raged over the Philippine Sea before making landfall in Taiwan on July 8. The images include visualizations of the height, direction, wind speed and temperature of thevortex, which sustained winds at 113 knots (130 mph or 210 km/h).

The first of the images shows the range of the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), an instrument launched in 1999 aboard Terra, a school-bus-size satellite that is considered the flagship of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). Multiple cameras at different angles provide depth cues, allowing scientists to calculate information such as the height of clouds. [Hurricanes from Above: Images of Nature's Biggest Storms]

MISR has been used for a variety of purposes, such as collecting information on wildfires, volcanic plumes and dust storms across the globe.

A RapidScat image of the typhoon.

Credit: Joshua Stevens, NASA Earth Observatory, RapidScat data from JPL

A second image shows the direction and speed of wind near the ocean surface, based on the roughness of the water. That data comes from the RapidScat instrument aboard the International Space Station.

A MODIS thermal image of the storm.

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz and Joshua Stevens, NASA, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response

The thermal image came from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite. The MODIS instrument can detect a wide range of electromagnetic radiation, from microwaves to infrared, visible and ultraviolet light. And that flexibility allows it to directly or indirectly measure temperature, how much radiation is reflected by the planet's surface (albedo), photosynthesis activity and levels of airborne particles (aerosols).

Nepartak began as a tropical depression on July 2, eventually building to the wind speeds that qualified it for "super typhoon" status. It killed two people and injured 72 in Taiwan before moving to Fujian Province, China, where it killed six and left eight missing.

Source: http://www.space.com/33710-super-typhoon-nepartak-nasa-photos.html

[Vanaraud]

Everybody can access satellite images about cloud movements in near real time in every bigger weather related website, I don´t see why this is posted as news, now when satellite has been up for almost 20y since ´99  (not steppin´ on DFigthers toes but wondering if I missed something important or on space.com there are very slow days:P)

[DFighter]

I just found it intresting  my news / science space / technology / and a bit medical news simply is based either its important or big news or I simply am intrested in it

[Vanaraud]

I just found it intresting  my news / science space / technology / and a bit medical news simply is based either its important or big news or I simply am intrested in it

 

Yeah well as I mentioned not pointing the finger in your direction, I´m just puzzled why its on the news sites where you referenced them;)

 

The satellite photos in itself are cool, when my bro was in vacation in Italy 10 years ago I used to predict weather for the next 24h for myself, I think then and later on- when I am going to beach and trying to predict weather for the upcoming day- I didn´t miss much. But the pics are reachable from bigger weather sites for more than a decade now;)

 

So I was wondering if there´s any more aspects of it. Like there were news about "peaking" under Greenlands ice sheet, which is much harder to acheve in my eyes

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-data-reveals-mega-canyon-under-greenland-ice