» Home > In the News

Drought, Lightning, and the Sun …

27 May 2010
Inside science

At www.physorg.com/print194030525.html tree rings have been used to compile a temperature proxy over 900 years in North West Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) and they show dry periods in the 13th and 16th centuries – and in the late 20th century. They appear to coincide with warmish weather in northern Europe – droughts are virtually absent after 1500AD for about 400 years when it was very cold in northern Europe. A connection has been made to air pressure anomalies in the North Atlantic – known as the North Atlantic Oscillation.

At www.physorg.com/print194001112.html reports on a team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology who have made a study of the lightning produced during the Eyjafjallajokull eruption. It went upwards from the volcano vent into the sky via the ash plume and they make the point that the volcano was concealed beneath a glacier. Ice is interesting because it is electro-positive, they say. Water droplets have a negative charge so eruptions via glacial ice create dynamic electrical conditions in the atmosphere.

At www.physorg.com/print194022041.html NASAs Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) has allowed scientists to view storms on the face of the Sun. It has produced 5 million images of the face of the Sun.

Skip to content