Physics Buzz

“Climate change will affect nearly every person on the planet in the coming decades,” according to Jake Fontana, a research physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Our ability to reliably predict and reasonably prepare for that change depends on how well we can model the climate. Thanks to a new tool developed by Fontana and his team at NRL, more accurate models may be on the way. Their results are reported in a recent issue of the American Physical Society’s journal Physical Review B .

Once in a rare while, the moon turns red—because the sky is blue. That might sound like nonsense, but it's the simplest accurate way to explain what happened early this morning, when the moon disappeared from view before returning with an eerie, rusty cast to it.

The sun is an hour over the horizon. It's the first week of October in Maryland, and there's something uniquely enchanting in how the light catches the tips of the trees. What is it that makes this morning sunlight so spectacularly yellow-gold? As with most things, the answer—at some level—comes down to physics.

Watching ocean waves crashing on the beach is a relaxing, almost restful experience for many people. But for others, the oceanfront is a better place to study climate change than have a lazy getaway. The air-water interface is teeming with interesting physics—vortex rings forming, gas bubbles bursting, gas bubbles being trapped, and drops bouncing, floating, and splashing. All of this activity has a direct impact on the climate.

Earth’s atmosphere has a history — not just in terms of temperature and composition, but also in the dynamics of its motions and chemistry. By tracing ultra-rare molecules in the present-day atmosphere and back into the past, Laurence Yeung , Assistant Professor of Earth Science at Rice University and recent Clarke Award recipient , is setting out to trace that dynamic history. “In the same way you'd tag a shark to figure out what its migration patterns are,” he explains, “you can exploit the natural tags that Mother Nature gives us in these stable isotopes.” Stable isotopes are atoms of the same element that differ slightly in mass thanks to an extra neutron or two, and they act as passive tracers in the atmosphere. A heavy isotope’s extra bit of mass can affect the physical and chemical processes it undergoes, concentrating or diluting it with respect to its lighter siblings. As a result, the ratio of these isotopes, like typical oxygen-16 (which has 8 protons and 8 neut

Can we smell a snowstorm before it begins? Anecdotally,  many people insist  that they can detect an impending snowfall, but what does the science say? On today’s podcast, we’re joined by olfactory scientist Pamela Dalton , a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, to explore the physics behind that crisp, snowy scent.

NOAA Photo Library, NOAA Central Library; OAR/ERL/National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL)  Last week, the Oklahoma City area was hit with a tornado  that claimed 18 lives, including those of two veteran storm chasers . The tornado came only a few weeks after 24 people were killed by a  tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma on May 20th . Tornados are more common in the central part of the United States than anywhere else in the world. How do these natural monsters form, and what do scientists need to know to keep people safe from them? This week on the Physics Central podcast we talk to Harold Brooks, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. Brooks shares with us the physics behind tornado formation, the many ways that scientists try to gather data on these rare and unpredictable events, and what they hope to learn about them in the future.