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3 answers

Why clouds are not moving in NASA's video of the Moon passing in front of the Earth?

I recently saw a short video from NASA. It shows the moon passing by the Earth as it rotates. NASA link: From a Million Miles Away, NASA Camera Shows Moon Crossing Face of Earth. The video itself looks quite fake, but that can probably be…
Chris Parton
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What are the physical upper bounds on the magnitude of an earthquake?

Given what we know about the physical mechanisms underlying earthquakes, what do the theoretical upper bounds on the magnitude of an earthquake look like? What physical phenomena impose those upper bounds? Assume that we're talking about the…
senshin
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Why are weather kites no longer used (much) operationally?

Figure 1.12 from the IPCC AR5 WG1 report (reproduced below) illustrates the different instruments that have been used for weather forecasting. Most of the methods have been in continuous use since their inception, except one: kites were used, but…
gerrit
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Why do more tornadoes happen late in the day?

According to the graph below, which appears to be sourced from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more tornadoes happen late in the day - why is this?
blunders
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Transfer precipitation forecast in mm to expected snowfall in cm

What conversion functions exist to transfer precipitation forecast in mm to expected snowfall in cm? Simple rules of thumbs as well as more advanced methods would be of interest.
BHF
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How do we know that we are NOT in an "Ice Age?"

Historically, the earth has had five "Ice Ages" Each of them lasted millions, tens of millions, or hundreds of millions of years. The last ice age reportedly ended perhaps 10,000 years ago. That seems to represent the beginning of recorded…
Tom Au
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Can large (and wet) storms really trigger large magnitude Earthquakes?

At the 2011 AGU Fall meeting, this poster claimed that the water erosion from Taiwan's wettest storms could prematurely trigger large magnitude earthquakes , $ M \ge 6.0 $. If this was true, this discovery would be incredibly important for not only…
Neo
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Will tropical cyclones form and be sustained in areas they previously were not due to global climate change?

With global climate change, is it possible that tropical cyclones (as seen in the Atlantic basin for example) are going to form and be sustained in regions where they previously did not, for example near Europe?
Zoltán Schmidt
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Is the magma in one volcano different from the magma in every other volcano?

First off, a confession: I'm asking this question because of The Lord of the Rings. If you're not aware already, in the story, a magical ring can only be destroyed in a specific volcano. The reason for this is presumably "because magic". But…
Wad Cheber
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How do long rivers exist?

I was recently on a long-haul flight over Siberia and it struck me as rather remarkable that something like the Lena River could exist. It seems very surprising that there's a route from some random spot near Lake Baikal over 2,800 miles or so to…
David Richerby
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Simple Climate Models that Predict Climate Change

I have a physics/maths background, and to me the most convincing evidence of a scientific fact is often a very simple model that gives reasonable results. A simplified model, which you can fully understand, is often more convincing than the…
tom
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Why does sea level correspond to boundary between oceanic and continental crust?

Is it a coincidence? the first is determined by the amount of water on the Earth and the second comes from evolution of tectonic plates. Still, oceans seem to fill exactly the oceanic crust.
ceillac
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Paleontology science fair ideas?

My daughter, age 8, wants to do her science fair project in paleontology. For the fair, we need to come up with a question that can lead to a hypothesis, then apply the scientific method to test this hypothesis. The wall we are hitting is that we…
Joseph
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Why does Earth have abundant oxygen in the atmosphere?

Because of photosynthesis, obviously. But then it's not actually that obvious after all, because photosynthesis is mostly balanced by respiration. We can summarise the processes of photosynthesis and respiration like this: $$\begin{align} \ce{CO2…
N. Virgo
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Why deep ocean didn't freeze during snowball Earth?

I know that at least twice in its history Earth was totally frozen. I also know that the last time it happened there were already life on Earth, and it survived. In deep water, under the ice, which was transparent enough for light to penetrate it…
amorfis
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