2019: global, one year time lapse of precipitable water

This animation shows a full, one year time lapse animation of precipitable water from Jan 1, 2019 until Jan 1, 2020. The data come from the National Weather Service's GFS numerical weather model (www.emc.ncep.n....
Precipitable water is a measure of how much water is contained in the atmosphere. (This is different from clouds, which are just the visible part of the total water in the air). In this animation, brighter blue colors represent larger amounts of water in the air. Brown colors represent drier air.
The band of moist air stretching along the equator corresponds to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Notice how it shifts north during the Northern Hemisphere summer and then south again during summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
Tropical cyclones (i.e., hurricanes and typhoons) are also visible as small swirls of light blue. At this time scale, about 4 days for every second of video, they move very quickly and can be easy to miss.
Today's precipitable water: earth.nullscho...

[@StuffandThings_]

Its amazing how beautiful and captivating weather can be, there's so much going on in such elegant patterns

[@dennisbauer3315]

Thank you to all the scientist.

[@cookingwithkimbap4432]

Missing an s there, buddy.

[@soundmanvicnanaimo]

thanks for this.......simple complex cycles

[@oskimac]

mesmerizing

[@KikiPhi]

Pretty. Thank you. What could be causing the difference we see happening over south central Africa, that makes it so different than what’s happening in Brazil and Indonesia?

[@airboy1021]

With respect to Brazil, I'm guessing it has to do with the Andes (you can see a huge rain water shadow along the length of Chile). I'm not certain why southern Africa is a more dry than Indonesia, but probably because Indonesia is an archipelago

[@11Cent]

thanks

[@ElectricUniverseEyes]

Mesmerizing

[@vladimirz518]

Hello. I apologize for my English. You can write the maximum permissible concentrations and life-safe concentrations in air DUex, PM1, PM2.5, PM10, SO4ex, COsc, CO2sc, SO2sm. Thank you

[@obsoleteoptics]

Don't forget NOx

[@synceware1453]

Looks like Australia should be alot greener..

[@leaf2180]

It would be if arsonists stopped setting it on fire.

[@StuffandThings_]

Few things to note:
Firstly, before humans burned a lot of it, it was. Then eucalpyts took over and encouraged more fire, and some parts just straight up converted to desert. Then modern agriculture took over a little corner in the southeast which further converted the landscape.
Second, a lot of the north is HOT tropical. This means very high evapotranspiration which negates the effects of having decent rainfall. To have rainforest tropics, you need very high levels of precipitation to combat this, and northern Australia has some precipitation but not high enough. Also the north is greener than you'd expect, its definitely not just desert but has some savanna and even a little forest.
Finally, Australia is a VERY old continent. This causes a handful of problems. First, the soil is very old, and thus pretty low in essential nutrients and high in stuff like salt which as you can imagine does not exactly lend itself well to dense greenery. Plants have adapted (proteaceae can very effectively scavenge for phosphorus, some plants are very salt tolerant etc.) but that only goes so far. And of course, the elephant in the room... Australia doesn't really have any mountains. Mt Kosciuszco is an absolute joke, barely over 2 kilometers tall and in the already wet-ish southeast anyways. Mountains help to turn precipitable water into actual precipitation through orographic lift, and so while Australia actually has a decent amount of atmospheric moisture it doesn't end up doing anything. If you notice, the Great Dividing Range and the coast to the east of it are actually decently wet and green. You'd get more of that elsewhere too if only there were a nice tall mountain range in the center of the continent instead of endless flat sandy plains.
Also, Australia does have its fair share of green bits, as mentioned the north has some savanna and monsoonal forest, the whole east coast is lush, tassie is rainforest, southern Victoria is rainforest, and southern West Australia has some Mediterranean climates and forest.

[@icewalker8382]

Обновите течения. Последнее обновление было 26.12.2019

[@stormtrackingforcasting2023]

how do you do this timelaps

[@siljrath]

anyone know why the space tab is stuck on 2020-10-28 ?