Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features a cluster of supercell thunderstorms that charged across the Great Plains on the morning of May 15, 2022. The storms carried strong winds, hail, torrential rainfall and extreme lightning through parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas.



"When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired the natural-color image, a line of strong thunderstorms stretched from eastern Kansas to Little Rock, Arkansas," reports NASA.



"The weather front included multiple storm cells with features called overshooting tops and above-anvil cirrus plumes, key signs of particularly severe storms."



"Overshooting tops are dome-like protrusions rising from thunderstorm clouds and driven by convective updrafts. These cloud top features can rise past the tropopause and the anvil portion of a thunderstorm cloud, sometimes punching into the lower stratosphere."



"Above-anvil cirrus plumes are comparatively warm patches of cirrus clouds that get dragged into the lower stratosphere by intense updrafts and the gravity waves that they can generate. Cirrus plumes are typically warmer than the underlying anvil cloud because they mix with the air in the stratosphere, where air temperature warms with height."



Overshooting tops and above-anvil cirrus plumes are not produced by all thunderstorms. They are usually associated with storms that create the most severe weather.&nbsp;



“Overshooting tops and above-anvil cirrus plumes are often a sign that a thunderstorm will produce hail, tornadoes, extreme lightning, and destructive winds,” said NASA atmospheric scientist Kristopher Bedka. “We know this because an especially intense updraft produced the patterns we see in the satellite imagery.”&nbsp;



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Supercell thunderstorms over the Great Plains

Today's Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features...

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features a severe dust storm in Iraq. Dust storms are most common in this region in the late spring and summer, triggered by seasonal winds such as the “shamal” that blows in from the northwest.&nbsp;



In the past two weeks in the Middle East, poor air quality from two major storms has sent thousands of people to the hospital for asthma and other respiratory diseases.



"The skies above Baghdad, Najaf, Sulaimaniyah, and other cities turned orange as visibility dropped to a few hundred meters. Several airports were closed during the dust events, and schools were closed nationwide. Government offices were shuttered in seven of the Iraq’s 18 provinces, and several governors declared states of emergency,' reports NASA.



According to news media reports, Iraq has endured at least eight dust storms in the past six weeks. Recent studies have shown that these events have become more frequent in Iraq.&nbsp;



"The country has been facing drought conditions in recent years, as well as land-use changes and overuse that mean there is more loose soil available to be lofted into the atmosphere," says NASA. "The World Bank cited Iraq as one of the countries most vulnerable to desertification and climate change."



The image was captured on May 16, 2022 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Aqua satellite.&nbsp;



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Iraq faces an increasing number of severe dust storms

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features an astronaut photograph of the San Luis Valley along the border of Colorado and New Mexico. At an altitude of 8,100 feet, the San Luis Valley is one of the largest high desert valleys in the world.&nbsp;



"Extinct volcanoes speckle the southern margin of the valley - an area known as the Taos Plateau Volcanic Field. Free-standing mountains in the volcanic field, such as San Antonio and Ute, are lava domes that were formed during eruptions almost 3 million years ago," reports NASA.



The Rio Grande flows from the San Juan Mountains through the center of the valley and continues south. According to NASA, the river has provided water and irrigation to people in the American Southwest for thousands of years, including the community of Native Americans that live in Taos.&nbsp;



The Taos Plateau has served as a primary field training area since the 1960s during the Apollo era.&nbsp;



"The San Luis Valley served as a planetary analog for the Apollo 15 lunar landing site at Hadley Rille," says NASA. "The southern area of the valley contains igneous rock structures similar to those on the lunar surface. Such field training prepares current and future astronauts for exploration of the Moon and Mars."



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The San Luis Valley of Colorado

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features Māʻalaea Bay on Maui’s southern shore, an area that is known for its large waves.&nbsp;



Two of Maui’s most iconic waves, known as “Freight Trains” and “Jaws,” are famous among surfers. While Freight Trains is considered one of the fastest surfable waves in the world, Jaws is known for big-wave surfing.



"The large waves, or swells, are typically generated in the southern hemisphere during winter, when large storms brew in the southern Pacific Ocean," reports NASA.



"The waves can travel thousands of miles, crossing the equator and eventually reaching Maui’s southern shore, where it is summer. But the waves can lose energy along the way as they encounter numerous island chains in the South Pacific."



"The foam produced by breaking waves shows up in satellite images as a white band close to the shore."&nbsp;



The image was captured on October 3, 2018 by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. A small amount of foam is visible near the harbor. According to NASA, theses late season waves were likely produced by Hurricane Walaka, a category-4 storm centered about 750 miles west of Māʻalaea.



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The iconic waves of Maui’s southern shore

Today's Image of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> features the Manitoba Great Lakes - Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, and Manitoba.



According to NASA, 43 percent of the land area of the province of Manitoba, Canada, is covered by bogs, fens, marshes, swamps, and open shallow water.



The wetlands and lakes appeared approximately 8,000 years ago just after the last ice age. The Manitoba Great Lakes are actual remnants of glacial Lake Agassiz, which formed about 14,500 years ago.&nbsp;



The image was captured on November 3, 2021 by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8.



Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/ Norman Kuring/NASA's Ocean Color Web



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The Great Lakes of Manitoba, Canada

Cold-water corals, just like their tropical counterparts, build three dimensional reef structures that offer complex habitats for many different species, including commercially important fish. They form <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-impacts-biodiversity-in-protected-areas-worldwide/">biodiversity</a> hotspots and are considered important in deep-sea ecosystem functioning, food web structure and nutrient cycling. Today, cold-water coral reefs are considered vulnerable ecosystems because they are exposed to threats from destructive fishing techniques, such as bottom trawling and towed dredges.



In addition, these corals are expected to suffer dramatically from future environmental changes in the oceans due to global warming, which may bring food shortages, decreases in oxygen availability, and acidification. However, it is difficult to predict how cold-water corals will respond to future climate changes because there is a complete lack of any data documenting local extinction events involving these corals.&nbsp;



To get around this problem, a team led by Rodrigo da Costa Portilho-Ramos of the University of Bremen made use of ancient evidence of past climate change captured in the sediments of the seabed. They analyzed sediments collected at or near six sites of cold-water coral ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, applying standard techniques to reconstruct ocean conditions and the abundance of the common coral species&nbsp;Lophelia pertusa&nbsp;over the last 20,000 years. This period encompasses Earth’s last major global warming event.



This approach allowed the researchers to reconstruct paleoceanographic conditions and link the proliferation or reduction of cold-water corals with changes in environmental conditions. This was possible because of the fact that cold-water coral ecosystems take a long time to develop and then are persistent over long time periods.&nbsp;



The results of the analysis are published today in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/">PLoS Biology</a>. They show that the abundance of the cold-water coral L. pertusa&nbsp;in times gone by was most strongly correlated with changes in food supply, the tiny suspended organisms that arrive either from shallower waters above, or by lateral water flow along the seafloor. Low oxygen concentration also appeared to be a key stressor for&nbsp;L. pertusa. In contrast, changes in ocean temperature and salinity did not appear to be significantly associated with the proliferation or disappearance of&nbsp;L. pertusa&nbsp;over time.



The findings suggest that cold-water coral ecosystems are most likely to be affected in future by climate change-driven alterations to ocean processes that affect their food and oxygen supplies. In some cases, the data suggest, high abundance of food may compensate for low oxygen levels.



“Marine sediment records from the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea reveal that events of growth and mortality of cold-water corals induced by climatic changes over the last 20,000 years were mainly triggered by food supply, controlled by export production and turbulent hydrodynamics, rather than by changes in the bottom-water temperature," said Portilho-Ramos.



"Therefore, climate-driven changes in oceanic processes concerning food supply are also likely to be the determining factors of life and death of cold-water coral species in the coming decades.”



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By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Ancient sediments predict future stressors for cold-water corals

Cold-water corals, just like their tropical counterparts, build three dimensional...

New research shows that snow will melt earlier in the Colorado River Basin, filling <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-is-the-climate-impacting-aquatic-life-in-mountain-streams/">streams</a> sooner and changing how reservoirs and irrigation are managed.&nbsp;



“Because of global climate change, areas of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming could have much less water, and future hydrologic conditions may more closely resemble those of the arid Southwest regions of the basin today,” said study co-author Katrina Bennett, a hydrologist at <a href="https://www.lanl.gov/">Los Alamos National Laboratory</a>.



The Colorado River Basin is massive, encompassing 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado to sea level deserts near the Gulf of California. Water from the basin is channeled to supply cities such as Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Diego and Santa Fe.&nbsp;



To predict the future of the river basin, the researchers used historical data. Entering drought indicators into a database and analyzing it with AI, the scientists created several climate models covering a thirty year period.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The AI let us disentangle the complicated relationships in space and time between drought-indicators and the factors that influence them,” said Bennett. “We were able to demonstrate a new capability to automatically isolate where these key indicators contribute to drought and where and how behavior will change in the future.”



However, the modeling isn’t perfect.“We observed significant uncertainty in drought behavior among the several climate models we used,” explained Bennett.



The models show an overall large loss of snowpack, especially in high elevations of the upper river basin mountains. Parts of the Green River Valley near the borders of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming are set to see drier soils - as are the mountains of Arizona.&nbsp;



The scientists hope that using this AI technology in a new way, will speed up future climate analysis and modeling.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The study was published in the journal <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/23335084">Earth and Space Science</a>. &nbsp;&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Major changes ahead for the Colorado River Basin

New research shows that snow will melt earlier in the...

Scallops are usually caught by dredging, a destructive <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dolphin-bycatch-from-fishing-activities-is-unsustainable/">fishing</a> method that tears up the seafloor and harms other life. Now, a study published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/fisheries-research">Fisheries Research</a>, shows there may be a better way.&nbsp;



A team of scientists led by the <a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/">University of Exeter</a> fitted lobster pots with LED lights, and used them experimentally with fishermen off the coast of Cornwall in the UK. The lights did not seem to make a difference in the amount of lobster or crabs caught in the traps. Scallops on the other hand, swam into the pots in droves.&nbsp;&nbsp;



"We were working on lights for crab and lobster pots and I gave some to a fisherman for testing," said Dr. Rob Enever of Fishtek. “He told me the lights made no difference to crabs or lobsters, but he noticed quite a lot of scallops in his pots. We decided to test this properly in this study."



"When I saw the results, I couldn't believe my eyes. Boats that would only see two or three scallops in their pots annually were now seeing 20 or more in a single pot. We have found something really astonishing here. This could be a real opportunity for crab and lobster fishers, because the lights don’t seem to reduce the number of crabs and lobsters they can catch – they just bring in an extra haul of scallops."



More than 500 scallops were caught. Of those, 99.6 percent were caught in lobster pots with lights in them. The researchers believe this breakthrough could ultimately lead to a widespread, improved method for catching scallops.



"We are delighted to be working with an excellent local company to do the science that underpins innovation that could be good for fishers and the environment," said Dr. Phil Doherty.



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By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Breakthrough study reveals that scallops are attracted to light

Scallops are usually caught by dredging, a destructive fishing method...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency </a>&nbsp;features a satellite view of the Amazon River in the rainforest of South America.



The Amazon River flows more than 4,000 miles from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast coast of Brazil, passing through six countries along the way.



With its source high in the Peruvian Andes, the river runs through Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.&nbsp;



The Amazon is considered the widest river in the world. It also has the largest drainage system, with more than 1,100 tributaries. These rivers provide a range of habitats for various types of wildlife, including swamps, marshes and streams.



According to WWF, it is estimated that approximately one-sixth of all the freshwater that drains into the world’s oceans goes through the Amazon delta, where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean.&nbsp; During what many archaeologists called the formative stage, Amazonian societies were deeply involved in the emergence of South America’s highland agrarian systems.



The trade with Andean civilizations in the terrains of the headwaters in the Andes formed an essential contribution to the social and religious development of higher-altitude civilizations like the Muisca and Incas.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The Amazon River in South America