Breezy onshore east to northeast wind will briefly bring cooler temps. to the area Fri., but it's back to warm for the weekend. No major rain anytime soon.
From the National Hurricane Center:
NOAA's National Hurricane Center has now completed its post-storm analyses of all Atlantic tropical cyclones that occurred during the 2011 hurricane season.
Of note is that the post-storm analysis of Hurricane Rina resulted in an upgrade of the hurricane to major hurricane status.
The Tropical Cyclone Report is posted ** here **.
This upgrade alters the final totals for the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season. The season officially produced a total of 19 tropical storms of which seven became hurricanes, including four major hurricanes. This level of activity matches NOAA’s predictions and continues the trend of active hurricane seasons that began in 1995.
The 19 tropical storms represent the third-highest total (tied with 1887, 1995, and 2010) since records began in 1851 and is well above the average of 11. The number of major hurricanes is also well above the average of two. However, the number of hurricanes is close to the average of six.
From NASA: (click here for a video version)
Hello and welcome. I'm Jane Houston Jones at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Mars rises even earlier and grows larger as it nears the closest approach to Earth in its orbit. It rises by 9 p.m. at the beginning of the month and just after sunset by month's end. Through a telescope, look for changes in the north polar cap as the sun warms the ice and the polar cap shrinks.
March, the month named for Mars, will also offer great Mars viewing.
Two comets, one visible at sunset and another after midnight, are worth a look through a telescope or binoculars.
Comet Levy returns to our skies in its 5 year 4 month orbit between Earth and Jupiter. Look for this faint comet below the constellations Orion and Lepus. Towards the end of the month it'll be near the tail of Canis Major, the Great Dog.
You'll have a better chance of seeing it through a telescope away from the city. Try around mid-month to avoid both light pollution and moonlight.
Comet Garradd reappears in our northern skies this month. Early in the month it glides by the globular cluster M92 in Hercules, then moves towards Draco. It should be visible in binoculars and possible even with the unaided eye.
On the nights of February 14 and 15, the comet's tail appears edge-on and you may be able to see a spike or anti-tail pointing towards the sun.
The bright planets Venus and Jupiter set earlier now, at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. respectively. Luckily, Saturn is rising earlier. Through a small telescope you'll be able to see Titan, Saturn's largest moon and possibly Rhea, Tethys and Dione.
With a good finder chart, you can spot Saturn's two-tone moon Iapetus. when its brighter side faces Earth, making the moon appear a magnitude brighter. It's quite far from Saturn. But look on the days on either side of February 8, 13 ring diameters away. That's Iapetus!
Also from NASA:
PASADENA, Calif. -- A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study.
GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is equipped with a MoonKAM. The images were taken as part of a test of Ebb's MoonKAM on Jan. 19. The GRAIL project plans to test the MoonKAM aboard Flow at a later date.
To view the 30-second video clip, visit ** here **.
In the video, the north pole of the moon is visible at the top of the screen as the spacecraft flies toward the lunar south pole. One of the first prominent geological features seen on the lower third of the moon is the Mare Orientale, a 560-mile-wide (900 kilometer) impact basin that straddles both the moon's near and far side.
The clip ends with rugged terrain just short of the lunar south pole. To the left of center, near the bottom of the screen, is the 93-mile-wide (149 kilometer) Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-shaped formation in the middle. The formation is a central peak, created many billions of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact.
"The quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM students as they prepare to explore the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
The twin spacecraft successfully achieved lunar orbit this past New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Previously named GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft received their new names from fourth graders at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont., following a nationwide student naming contest.
Thousands of fourth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the satellites for students to study. The MoonKAM program is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space. Her team at Sally Ride Science and undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach.
"We have had great response from schools around the country; more than 2,500 signed up to participate so far," Ride said. "In mid-March, the first pictures of the moon will be taken by students using MoonKAM. I expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science and engineering."
Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow periodically perform trajectory correction maneuvers that, over time, will lower their orbits to near-circular ones with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers). During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
From the USGS: (pictures below courtesy USGS)
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Precipitous declines in formerly common mammals in Everglades National Park have been linked to the presence of invasive Burmese pythons, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study, the first to document the ecological impacts of this invasive species, strongly supports that animal communities in this 1.5-million-acre park have been markedly altered by the introduction of pythons within 11 years of their establishment as an invasive species. Mid-sized mammals are the most dramatically affected.
Bobcats are one of the predators that may be negatively affected by pythons, which both compete with them for prey and prey on them. Photo copyrighted by Christopher Gillette, Florida International University. This photo may be used by media and others in association with the Burmese pythons and Everglades press release. (High resolution image)
Once-common opossums are now rarely seen in Everglades National Park, likely because of being preyed upon by Burmese pythons. Photo copyrighted by Christopher Gillette, Florida International University. This photo may be used by media and others in association with the Burmese pythons and Everglades press release. (High resolution image)
The most severe declines, including a nearly complete disappearance of raccoons, rabbits and opossums, have occurred in the remote southernmost regions of the park, where pythons have been established the longest. In this area, populations of raccoons dropped 99.3 percent, opossums 98.9 percent and bobcats 87.5 percent. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, were not seen at all.
"Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America's most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems," said U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt. "Right now, the only hope to halt further python invasion into new areas is swift, decisive and deliberate human action."
The researchers collected their information via repeated systematic night-time road surveys within the park, counting both live and road-killed animals. Over the period of the study, researchers traveled a total of nearly 39,000 miles from 2003 to 2011 and compared their findings with similar surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997 along the same roadways before pythons were recognized as established in Everglades National Park.
The scientists who authored the paper noted that the timing and geographic patterns of the documented mammal declines are consistent with the timing and geographic spread of pythons.
The authors also conducted surveys in ecologically similar areas north of the park where pythons have not yet been discovered. In those areas, mammal abundances were similar to those in the park before pythons proliferated. At sites where pythons have only recently been documented, however, mammal populations were reduced, though not to the dramatic extent observed within the park where pythons are well established.
"The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in Everglades National Park and justifies the argument for more intensive investigation into their ecological effects, as well as the development of effective control methods," said Michael Dorcas, lead author of the study, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, and author of the book Invasive Pythons in the United States. "Such severe declines in easily seen mammals bode poorly for the many species of conservation concern that are more difficult to sample but that may also be vulnerable to python predation."
The mammals that have declined most significantly have been regularly found in the stomachs of Burmese pythons removed from Everglades National Park and elsewhere in Florida. The authors noted that raccoons and opossums often forage for food near the water's edge, a habitat frequented by pythons in search of prey.
The authors suggested that one reason for such dramatic declines in such a short time is that these prey species are “naïve” – that is, they not used to being preyed upon by pythons since such large snakes have not existed in the eastern United States for millions of years. Burmese pythons over 16 feet long have been found in the Everglades. In addition, some of the declining species could be both victims of being eaten by pythons and of having to compete with pythons for food.
"It took 30 years for the brown treesnake to be implicated in the nearly complete disappearance of mammals and birds on Guam; it has apparently taken only 11 years since pythons were recognized as being established in the Everglades for researchers to implicate pythons in the same kind of severe mammal declines," said Robert Reed, a USGS scientist and co-author of the paper. "It is possible that other mammal species, including at-risk ones, have declined as well because of python predation, but at this time, the status of those species is unknown."
The scientists noted that in their native range in Asia, pythons have been documented to consume leopards. Consequently, even large animals, including top predators, are susceptible to python predation. For example, pythons have been documented consuming full-grown deer and alligators. Likewise, the authors state that birds, including highly secretive birds such as rails, make up about a fourth of the diet of Everglades pythons, and declines in these species could be occurring without managers realizing it.
"Our research adds to the increasing evidence that predators, whether native or exotic, exert major influence on the structure of animal communities," said John Willson, a study co-author, a research scientist at Virginia Tech University and author of the book Invasive Pythons in the United States. "The effects of declining mammal populations on the overall Everglades ecosystem, which extends well beyond the national park boundaries, are likely profound, but are probably complex and difficult to predict. Studies examining such effects are sorely needed to more fully understand the impacts pythons are having on one of our most unique and valued national parks."
The authors found little support for alternative explanations for the mammal declines, such as disease or changes in habitat structure or water management regimes.
"This severe decline in mammals is of significant concern to the overall health of the Park's large and complex ecosystem," said Everglades National Park superintendent Dan Kimball. "We will continue to enhance our efforts to control and manage the non-native python and to better understand the impacts on the Park. No incidents involving visitor safety and pythons have occurred in the Park. Encounters with pythons are very rare; that said visitors should be vigilant and report all python sightings to park rangers," Kimball said.
On Jan. 23, 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a rule in the Federal Register that will ban the importation and interstate transportation of four non-native constrictor snakes (Burmese python, northern and southern African pythons, and the yellow anaconda) that threaten the Everglades and other sensitive ecosystems. These snakes are being listed as injurious species under the Lacey Act. In addition, the FWS will continue to consider listing as injurious five other species of nonnative snakes: the reticulated python, boa constrictor, DeSchauensee’s anaconda, green anaconda and Beni anaconda.
