Transcript

8.13.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader's
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Speaker 1: Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles on the topics of science
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Speaker 1: in nature, but first a reminder. RADIOI is a reading
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Speaker 1: service intended for people who are blind or have other
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Speaker 1: disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. We'll
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Speaker 1: start with an article from Popular Mechanics. The headline reads,
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Speaker 1: climate change could heat the Earth right into a new
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Speaker 1: ice age. Like all of us, the Earth goes through
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Speaker 1: phases over the course of its existence. The planet's climactic
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Speaker 1: processes have relied on certain mechanisms to regulate its temperature,
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Speaker 1: mechanisms that can have profound effects on the surface of
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Speaker 1: the planet and in turn the life that inhabits that surface.
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Speaker 1: During the Jurassic Period, for example, the Earth was so
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Speaker 1: warm that Antarctica was home to temperate rainforests. Rewind the
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Speaker 1: evolutionary clock a couple hundred million years to the Cryogenian
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Speaker 1: and Earth was essentially a giant snowball, an example of
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Speaker 1: when Earth's natural regulatory systems went a bit haywire. Today,
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Speaker 1: the Earth is experiencing a warming period unlike any other.
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Speaker 1: The Jurassic, which was warm due to high levels of
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Speaker 1: atmospheric carbon reached its sweltering temperatures gradually, whereas anthropogenic climate
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Speaker 1: change has caused much more rapid shifts, so rapid, in fact,
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Speaker 1: that certain climactic changes have been discernible even within the
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Speaker 1: average human life span. Typically, one way the Earth regulates
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Speaker 1: its temperatures through the slow weathering of silicate rocks, a
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Speaker 1: process sometimes referred to as Earth's natural thermostat. But a
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Speaker 1: new study led by scientists at the University of Bremen
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Speaker 1: in Germany and the University of California river Side, shows
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Speaker 1: that a combination of biological and oceanic feedback loops, particularly
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Speaker 1: those involving algae, phosphorus, and oxygen, could outpace this long
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Speaker 1: standing moderation strategy. This would paradoxically lead Earth to a
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Speaker 1: premature deep freeze hundreds of thousands of years in the future.
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Speaker 1: The results of the study were published in the journal's
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Speaker 1: Science Quote. When the planet warms, rocks weather faster and
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Speaker 1: absorb more co two, allowing the Earth to cool down again,
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Speaker 1: says Dominic Holtz, a co author of the study from
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Speaker 1: UC Riverside, And that would be great if it were
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Speaker 1: the only process contributing significantly to our cooling, but it isn't.
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Speaker 1: When Holts and co author Andy Ridgewell considered altered processes
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Speaker 1: in the ocean, they realized the potentially dramatic impacts of
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Speaker 1: algo blooms and their collective ability to see quester carbon
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Speaker 1: in marine sediments. The duo discovered that a runaway effect
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Speaker 1: could cause an overcompensation of sorts, leading to a cooling
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Speaker 1: effect that would drop global temperatures far below pre industrial levels.
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Speaker 1: Quote in the computer model of this study, this can
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Speaker 1: trigger and ice age. With the silicate weathering alone, we
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Speaker 1: were unable to simulate such extreme values. Typically, alga blooms
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Speaker 1: don't outpace silicate weathering in terms of cooling, but the
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Speaker 1: more temperate waters and excess nutrients like phosphorus made available
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Speaker 1: in a warming world can supercharge alga blooms, causing more
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Speaker 1: and more to occur. When algae die, they take any
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Speaker 1: carbon that they've trapped within themselves to the bottom of
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Speaker 1: the ocean, where it remains locked out of the atmosphere
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Speaker 1: and causes the Earth to cool off. And with more
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Speaker 1: algal blooms occurring, more and more carbon gets trapped, theoretically
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Speaker 1: causing the Earth's temperature to drop more and more. The
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Speaker 1: one piece of good news the author's report is that,
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Speaker 1: compared to other intense cooling periods, such as the Cryoginian,
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Speaker 1: the atmosphere contains more oxygen, which will likely prevent the
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Speaker 1: planet from becoming a giant snowball in the future. But
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Speaker 1: hold on, we're in the middle of a concerning period
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Speaker 1: of global warming. Isn't a carbon sequestering cooling force a
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Speaker 1: good thing? Well, the big problem is that humans are
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Speaker 1: already experiencing the devastating effects of a warming climate, and
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Speaker 1: these planetary regulating processes can play out over tens, if
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Speaker 1: not hundreds of thousands of years. Quote. At the end
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Speaker 1: of the day, does it really matter much if the
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Speaker 1: start of the next ice age is fifty, one hundred
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Speaker 1: or two hundred thousand years in the future, Ridgewell said
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Speaker 1: in a press statement. Quote, we need to focus now
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Speaker 1: on limiting ongoing warm That the Earth will naturally cool
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Speaker 1: back down is not going to happen fast enough to
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Speaker 1: help us out. Will turn now to ours Technica and
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Speaker 1: the headline for this article is the first self driving
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Speaker 1: vehicle on Mars has proved to be a smashing success.
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Speaker 1: Dated August eighth. Sometime next week NASA's newest rover on Mars, Perseverance,
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Speaker 1: will set a record for the most distance driven by
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Speaker 1: any vehicle on another world. The automobile sized rover, which
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Speaker 1: landed on Mars in February twenty twenty one, will traverse
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Speaker 1: beyond forty five kilometers across the Martian surface. In doing so,
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Speaker 1: it will break the previous record for distance held by
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Speaker 1: the long lived Opportunity rover, which ceased communications with NASA
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Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. So how did Perseverance reach this record,
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Speaker 1: setting down distance in just a third of the time quote.
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Speaker 1: The real enabling technology has been its auto navigation system,
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Speaker 1: said Stephen Lee, the project manager for the Perseverance rover
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Speaker 1: at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Much like self driving cars
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Speaker 1: on Earth, Perseverance has sophisticated onboard cameras that image the
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Speaker 1: surrounding terrain, and these images are then processed algorithmically by
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Speaker 1: an onboard computer to calculate the safest route. Terrestrial vehicles
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Speaker 1: have some advantages, of course, like clearly defined maps, street signs, lanes,
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Speaker 1: and more. Additionally, there are plenty of road hazards on Mars,
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Speaker 1: from large boulders to sandy slopes. But at least Perseverance
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Speaker 1: does not have to contend with other traffic and bad drivers.
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Speaker 1: The Curiosity rover, largely a twin of Perseverance that launched
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Speaker 1: a nine years earlier, had similar imaging capability and algorithms,
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Speaker 1: but its onboard computer was a generation older than some
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Speaker 1: of its chipset, dated back to the nineteen nineties. As
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Speaker 1: a result, only about ten percent of Curiosities driving is
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Speaker 1: autonomous because its processing capabilities are too slow. In its
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Speaker 1: decade and a half on Mars, Curiosity has driven thirty
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Speaker 1: eight point six kilometers. By contrast, about ninety percent of
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Speaker 1: the distance driven by Perseverance has been autonomous thanks to
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Speaker 1: its slightly more modern vision compute element. This allows the
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Speaker 1: vehicle to perform all of its sensing and computation while
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Speaker 1: its wheels are turning. Note that the vehicle is going
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Speaker 1: super fast, as Perseverance's maximum wheel speed is about one
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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty meters per hour. Still, because Perseverance has
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Speaker 1: not had to spend much time stopped to wait for
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Speaker 1: navigation commands from drivers on Earth, the vehicle has been
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Speaker 1: able to maximize the amount of scientific return. Quote. It
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Speaker 1: is very enabling for the science, said Vivian's Sun. The
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Speaker 1: mission's deputy project scientists quote not to sell the rover's
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Speaker 1: other advanced capabilities short, but the driving in particular has
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Speaker 1: allowed us to have a larger scope than previous missions.
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Speaker 1: Perseverance's self driving ability has nicely complemented its mission. Curiosity
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Speaker 1: landed in Gale Crater and has slowly been making its
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Speaker 1: way up Mount Sharp. It moves less and spends more
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Speaker 1: time systematically taking detailed measurements as it gains altitude. Perseverance, however,
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Speaker 1: landed in Jezero Crater, where its science objectives are more
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Speaker 1: spread out. It has been able to cruise from one
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Speaker 1: location to another, often surprising scientists by turning up at
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Speaker 1: a new site ahead of the planned timeline. And that's
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Speaker 1: good because there is a lot of work to do.
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Speaker 1: In Jezero Crater, the rover is studying some of the
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Speaker 1: most ancient rocks in the Solar System, older than any
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Speaker 1: on Earth, dating as far back as the about four
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Speaker 1: billion years ago. At the time, the planet was in
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Speaker 1: the latter stages of the heavy bombardment era, when rocks
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Speaker 1: were still whizzing around the inner planets in great numbers,
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Speaker 1: but things were starting to settle down. Well, it's the
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Speaker 1: first time we've been able to investigate this terrain in
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Speaker 1: Setu and that's been very exciting. Sun said. During this era,
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Speaker 1: large lakes and possibly even oceans are thought to have
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Speaker 1: existed on Mars. Perseverance is exploring this ancient terrain to
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Speaker 1: better understand what geological and environmental conditions might have existed
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Speaker 1: at the time, and just how conducive the planet might
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Speaker 1: have been to life. Scientists believe the planet might have
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Speaker 1: looked something like the Mojave Desert on Earth, with water
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Speaker 1: flowing through it, but the debate rages on. With Perseverance,
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of data to base it upon. Curiosity
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Speaker 1: is still going strong on Mars after nearly fifteen years,
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Speaker 1: and Perseverance operators say the newer is doing great as well.
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Speaker 1: After a few years on Mars, Curiosity operators noted significant
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Speaker 1: wear and tear on the vehicle's wheels, so for Perseverance,
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Speaker 1: the wheels were redesigned and there are no signs of
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Speaker 1: appreciable wear and tear. The only major concern at this
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Speaker 1: point is the actuators in the wheels. They were initially
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Speaker 1: life tested for twenty kilometers of driving, but NASA is
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Speaker 1: in the midst of certifying them to at least one
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Speaker 1: hundred kilometers and possibly longer. Perseverance operates on RTG power
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Speaker 1: and has no propellants, consumables or lubricants on board. For
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Speaker 1: this reason, Li said the vehicle could keep driving itself
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Speaker 1: across Mars for many years to come. Now will turn
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Speaker 1: to National Geographic. The headline for the article is what
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Speaker 1: yellowjacket stings reveal about how scientists measure pain? And this
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Speaker 1: is dated August fourth. If you've ever been stung by
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Speaker 1: a yellowjacket, you belong to an unexclusive club. The black
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Speaker 1: and yellow insects are common throughout the United States and
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Speaker 1: infamous for having an aggressive attitude toward humans. But our
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Speaker 1: yellow jacket stings really more painful than other insects like honeybees?
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Speaker 1: And how to scientists rank the pain of an insects sting?
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Speaker 1: Late entomologist Justin Schmidt made it his mission to find
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Speaker 1: out By documenting the particular kind of pain inflicted by
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Speaker 1: the insects he studied in detail, Schmidt was able to introduce,
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Speaker 1: in the early nineteen eighties a kind of science no
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Speaker 1: one had ever attempted before. One requiring that he be
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Speaker 1: stung by as many insects as possible, and which would
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Speaker 1: come to be known as the Schmidt sting pain index.
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Speaker 1: When Schmidt was around five years old in the nineteen
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Speaker 1: fifties growing up in Pennsylvania, a group of older boys
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Speaker 1: dared him to sit on a thatching a ant colony.
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Speaker 1: These ants don't sting, but they can break human skin
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Speaker 1: with their sharp bites, spraying, forming acid into open wounds.
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Speaker 1: Within seconds, Schmidt remembers he was swarmed by ants, and
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Speaker 1: all of them intent on attacking his posterior. He did
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Speaker 1: what anyone would do. Schmidt leaped off the ant hill,
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Speaker 1: took off his pants as fast as he could, and
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Speaker 1: spent the next few agonizing minutes swatting anything that moved quote.
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Speaker 1: No long term damage was done, Schmidt wrote in his
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Speaker 1: book The Sting of the Wild, The Story of the
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Speaker 1: Man who got stungng for science, but I had learned
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Speaker 1: an important lesson. Insects can fight back. Over the next
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Speaker 1: seventy years, Schmidt dedicated his life to studying that truth,
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Speaker 1: eventually getting stung by more than one hundred and fifty
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Speaker 1: species of insect, including bullet ants, warrior wasps, and giant
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Speaker 1: bornian carpenter bees. The Schmidt, who died in twenty twenty three,
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Speaker 1: was no thrill or attention seeker. Rather, he used his
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Speaker 1: body and its reaction to pain as a scientific instrument.
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Speaker 1: This is because all venom, whether it comes from wasps, snakes,
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Speaker 1: or jellyfish, can be said to be made up of
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Speaker 1: two general parts. There's the pain it causes, and there's
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Speaker 1: its toxicity. And while toxicity or the physical damage done
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Speaker 1: by a venom is rather easy to compare, scientifically, subjective
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Speaker 1: pain is not. Quote. There were no physiological or pharmacological
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Speaker 1: methods to place accurate values on pain, wrote Schmidt. Even
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Speaker 1: today we lack reliable methods to insert electrodes into nerves
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Speaker 1: or parts of the brain to measure pain and then
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Speaker 1: to understand the meaning of the electrode readings. Quote. Pain
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Speaker 1: in humans is still very difficult because what some people
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Speaker 1: experience doesn't seem to be what all people experience, says
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Speaker 1: Corey Moreau, an entomologist and curator at Cornell University. However,
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Speaker 1: by using the widely available honeybee and its sting as comparison,
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Speaker 1: Schmidt began to rank every other sting on a scale
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Speaker 1: of zero to four, with the honeybee scoring a two.
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Speaker 1: He also verified his estimates by encouraging other experts to
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Speaker 1: do the same, and so the Schmidt Sting Index was born. Quote.
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Speaker 1: A lot of people now reference the Schmidt Sting pain index,
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Speaker 1: said Moreau, for the first time. It gave us the
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Speaker 1: ability to sort of quantify and say which stings are
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Speaker 1: more painful or longer lasting than others. Many people will
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Speaker 1: find it surprising to learn the yellow jacket stings are
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Speaker 1: equal to those of a honeybee, despite wasps having a
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Speaker 1: reputation for hurting more than bees, and both species, which
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Speaker 1: scored a two, exceed the pain of fire ants and
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Speaker 1: paper wasps, which only score a one. Only three animals
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Speaker 1: tip the scale at scores of four, including tarantula, hawk wasps,
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Speaker 1: warrior wasps, and the appropriately appropriately named bullet ants. For
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Speaker 1: his part, Schmidt liked to include notes about the particular
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Speaker 1: kind of pain inflicted by each of the insects he studied,
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Speaker 1: and for yellow jackets, he described the sting as hot
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Speaker 1: and smoky, almost irreverent, and comparable to W. C. Fields
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Speaker 1: extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. Likewise, Schmidt described the
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Speaker 1: honeybees sting as quote burning end quote, corrosive, as if
15:44
Speaker 1: quote a flaming match. A flaming matchhead lands on your
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Speaker 1: arm and is quenched first with lye and then with
15:51
Speaker 1: sulfuric acidote for the warrior wasps tasting notes, Schmidt even
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Speaker 1: got a little introspective quote torture. You are chained in
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Speaker 1: the flow of an active volcano. Why did I start
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Speaker 1: this list? Quote? Studying how insect sting pain varies across
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Speaker 1: species can help us learn about evolution. After all, insects
16:18
Speaker 1: had to evolve the ability to sting, and their continued
16:20
Speaker 1: ability to do so is only a result of an
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Speaker 1: arms race with the predators they live near. Quote. Ironically,
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Speaker 1: stings must sometimes fail if they are to become effective defenses,
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Speaker 1: roach Schmidt. If yellowjackets had no predators, their venomous stings
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Speaker 1: would never have evolved in the first place. Chris Alice Kratzer,
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Speaker 1: entomologist and author of The Social Wasps of North America,
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Speaker 1: also points out that predators can't learn from a sting
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Speaker 1: if they're dead. Quote. Causing a predator to remember a
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Speaker 1: painful encounter is often more valuable to a would be
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Speaker 1: preyed insect than killing a predator outright. Kratzer says for
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Speaker 1: most animals, learning is only valuable to the living. Of course,
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Speaker 1: as Schmidt's pain index reveals, no two insects stings are identical.
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Speaker 1: Each is the product of countless predator and prey interactions,
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Speaker 1: natural selection, and eons of time. In the end, while
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Speaker 1: most of us would rather avoid being stung by a
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Speaker 1: yellowjacket or any other stinging insect, Schmidt knew that insect
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Speaker 1: sting pain was fleeting unless you're allergic. For most stings,
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Speaker 1: he recommended setting a fifteen minute timer at the end
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Speaker 1: of which the pain should be well on its way
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Speaker 1: to receding. Insect stings are sort of like eating a
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Speaker 1: hob and arrow chili, he said, indicating that pain does
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Speaker 1: not necessarily coincide with damage. Your tonsils don't fall out
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Speaker 1: after you've eaten it. But the knowledge one can gain
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Speaker 1: from being stung, either about an animal's evolution and how
17:58
Speaker 1: it fits into its environment, that can stay with you
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Speaker 1: for a lifetime. Now, next up, we have an article
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Speaker 1: from AFP News Butterflies seek new habitats as climate changes.
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Speaker 1: Climate change is driving shifts in where butterflies are found globally,
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Speaker 1: a major study said, with many species moving into new
18:24
Speaker 1: areas while others are retreating from traditional habitats. The study
18:28
Speaker 1: in Nature, Ecology and Evolution is one of the most
18:31
Speaker 1: comprehensive to date on how butterfly distributions are changing. Assessing
18:36
Speaker 1: more than one thousand, seven hundred species across one hundred
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Speaker 1: and five countries and territories, researchers found that nearly eighty
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Speaker 1: percent of the reported shifts in the geographic ranges where
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Speaker 1: butterflies were associated with climate change and extreme weather events.
18:53
Speaker 1: Other factors were also driven by human activity changes in
18:57
Speaker 1: land use, intensive agriculture, urban is a habitat fragmentation, and
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Speaker 1: the introduction of invasive species. Butterflies are considered important indicators
19:08
Speaker 1: of ecosystem health because they are highly sensitive to temperature changes,
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Speaker 1: have short life cycles, and depend on specific hoast plants.
19:17
Speaker 1: As the planet warms, primarily because of the burning of coal, oil,
19:21
Speaker 1: and gas, some butterfly species are relocating northwards or seeking
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Speaker 1: out higher elevations in search of cooler conditions. However, just
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Speaker 1: twenty two percent of species showed a shift in elevation. Overall,
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Speaker 1: eighty percent of species expanded their range, while twenty seven
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Speaker 1: percent experienced range contraction, with some showing different patterns in
19:46
Speaker 1: different regions, underscoring the complexity of responses to climate change.
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Speaker 1: This is rather good news, as it proves that butterfly
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Speaker 1: species are capable of migrating and shifting their range to
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Speaker 1: adapt to changes. Study co author Jonathan Lenoir, an ecologist
20:04
Speaker 1: from France's National Scientific Research Center. Lenoir cautioned that range
20:09
Speaker 1: expansions were easier to detect than contractions because it was
20:13
Speaker 1: simpler to confirm a species as colonized a new area
20:17
Speaker 1: than prove it has vanished entirely from another. Many observations,
20:21
Speaker 1: including those made by citizen scientists, were concentrated in lowland
20:26
Speaker 1: areas and near urban centers, potentially skewing the findings. But
20:31
Speaker 1: butterflies could only adapt so far, Lenoir said it was
20:36
Speaker 1: possible that beyond a certain warming threshold, more butterflies would
20:41
Speaker 1: contract their range, causing quote much more rapid and sudden
20:45
Speaker 1: upheavals and potential extinctions. A twenty twenty four study in
20:52
Speaker 1: Global Ecology and Biogeography found that eighty four percent of
20:56
Speaker 1: roughly two hundred and seventy butterfly species studied in Europe
21:00
Speaker 1: would reduce their range by twenty eighty if global temperatures
21:03
Speaker 1: keep rising quote, some butterfly species will not necessarily be
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Speaker 1: able to migrate further north in latitude or higher up
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Speaker 1: in the mountains in response to the global rising temperatures,
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Speaker 1: said Lenoir species endemic to mountain regions on islands could
21:21
Speaker 1: become trapped as their habitat is reduced to almost nothing,
21:25
Speaker 1: with limited options to shift elsewhere. The authors advocated for
21:30
Speaker 1: stronger conservation policies, the protection and restoration of butterfly habitats,
21:35
Speaker 1: ecological corridors and microclimate refuges, and improving biodiversity monitoring, particularly
21:44
Speaker 1: through citizen science. Underlining at all, they emphasize the urgent
21:48
Speaker 1: need to limit global warming to lower levels. Knowledge gaps, too,
21:53
Speaker 1: must be addressed. Just one in ten butterfly species has
21:57
Speaker 1: documented data on how its range is changing, and tropical
22:01
Speaker 1: regions remain largely understudied, the author said, And now back
22:08
Speaker 1: to popular science. I'm sorry this is popular mechanics for
22:13
Speaker 1: an article headlined China planted seventy eight billion new trees
22:18
Speaker 1: and seriously messed up its water cycle. It's no secret
22:24
Speaker 1: that China is particularly adept at building things. The world's
22:28
Speaker 1: largest dam in China, largest high speed rail network that
22:33
Speaker 1: would be China largest wind farm China solar array Argentina.
22:39
Speaker 1: Really Nope, it's also china largest ancient landmark. You get
22:43
Speaker 1: the picture. Alongside all of that building, China has also
22:47
Speaker 1: been growing. Taking inspiration from that last infrastructure accolade, China
22:52
Speaker 1: began growing the Three North Shelter Belt or the Great
22:57
Speaker 1: Green Wall in nineteen seventy eight as an effort to
23:00
Speaker 1: combat soil erosion and decrease desert storms. The project, the
23:05
Speaker 1: country's state sponsored media announced, was finally complete as of
23:09
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. According to Reuter's, China grew one hundred
23:15
Speaker 1: and sixteen thousand square miles of trees, increasing the country's
23:19
Speaker 1: total forest coverage from ten percent in nineteen forty nine
23:22
Speaker 1: to roughly twenty five percent in twenty twenty four. But
23:26
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty five study published in the journal Earth's
23:29
Speaker 1: Future shows that all those additional trees, roughly seventy eight billion,
23:34
Speaker 1: come with some unforeseen consequences for China's water distribution. Scientists
23:41
Speaker 1: from Tianjin University, China Agricultural University in Beijing, and Utrecht
23:47
Speaker 1: University in the Netherlands found that between two thousand and
23:50
Speaker 1: one and twenty twenty, increased vegetation reduced water resources in
23:55
Speaker 1: both the Eastern monsoon region and the northwestern arid region.
24:00
Speaker 1: That's a big deal considering these areas make up roughly
24:03
Speaker 1: seventy four percent of China's total land area. According to
24:07
Speaker 1: the study, regreening efforts like the Great Green Wall, along
24:12
Speaker 1: with other tree planting initiatives such as Grain for Green
24:16
Speaker 1: Program and the National Natural Forest Protection Program, with both
24:21
Speaker 1: started in nineteen ninety nine, have increased evapo transpiration, which
24:27
Speaker 1: is the portmanteau of evaporation and transpiration, the process through
24:32
Speaker 1: which plants release water vapor through tiny pores known as stomata. Quote.
24:39
Speaker 1: These shifts cause changes in precipitation, directing more moisture to
24:44
Speaker 1: the Tipetan Plateau, which saw it increase in water availability,
24:48
Speaker 1: the authors wrote. Quote. In contrast, eastern and northwestern China
24:52
Speaker 1: experienced a decrease in water availability, with the northwest losing
24:57
Speaker 1: the most due to substantial moisture moving to to the
25:00
Speaker 1: Tibetan Plateau. By studying these rapid land use cover changes,
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Speaker 1: the authors also note that certain zone transitions, such as
25:11
Speaker 1: grasslands to forests or crop lands to grasslands, impacted evapotransporation
25:18
Speaker 1: precipitation rates and water availability at varying rates. For example,
25:23
Speaker 1: grasslands transformed into forests increased EVAPO transporation and precipitation, but
25:31
Speaker 1: negatively impacted water availability. Unfortunately, China's water availability isn't conveniently
25:39
Speaker 1: distributed for its population. According to the study, the country's
25:43
Speaker 1: northern regions contain roughly forty six percent of its population
25:47
Speaker 1: and more than half of the arable land, but only
25:50
Speaker 1: twenty percent of water availability. The authors argue that these
25:55
Speaker 1: altered hydrological cycles need to be taken into account when
25:58
Speaker 1: planning future reforestation efforts. Quote our findings highlight that land
26:05
Speaker 1: cover changes can redistribute water resources between regions. The authors wrote,
26:10
Speaker 1: understanding these effects is crucial for planning sustainable land and
26:14
Speaker 1: water management in China. And now to the Weather Channel.
26:21
Speaker 1: Why August kicks off the Atlantic hurricane season's busiest stretch
26:27
Speaker 1: dated August fourth. August is here, which serves as the
26:31
Speaker 1: ramp up in tropical activity in the Atlantic Basin. This
26:35
Speaker 1: increase in activity continues until the peak of the Atlantic
26:39
Speaker 1: hurricane season on September tenth, and there are a number
26:43
Speaker 1: of weather factors that historically begin to shift in the
26:46
Speaker 1: basin During this time, there are a number of changes
26:50
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere that historically begin to happen in August,
26:53
Speaker 1: which leads to the spike in named storms in the
26:56
Speaker 1: Atlantic Basin scene. In the graphic above, tropical wave chances increase.
27:02
Speaker 1: Tropical waves are areas of low pressure that form over
27:05
Speaker 1: Africa and move west into the Atlantic Basin. These disorganized
27:10
Speaker 1: lows don't have a closed circulation, but as they move
27:13
Speaker 1: into favorable atmospheric conditions, they can get more organized and
27:16
Speaker 1: become more tropical storms or hurricanes. Dry dusty air decreases.
27:23
Speaker 1: Speaking of Africa, rounds of dust from the Saharan desert
27:26
Speaker 1: move west off the African coast. This dusty air is hot, dry,
27:31
Speaker 1: and very stable. It serves as a cap that squelches
27:34
Speaker 1: tropical development all around it. But the tropical waves actually
27:39
Speaker 1: provide moisture to the desert, which stops the dust from flowing,
27:44
Speaker 1: and then wind shear lessens. Wind shear defines as changes
27:48
Speaker 1: in wind speed and direction as you move up in
27:50
Speaker 1: the atmosphere can majorly disrupt the development of tropical systems. Historically,
27:55
Speaker 1: in August, the shear in the Atlantic Basin lowers, which
27:59
Speaker 1: allow for more storms to develop Well, that's all for
28:04
Speaker 1: today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader was Kelly Taylor.
28:07
Speaker 1: Now stay tuned for further programming on RADIOI