[ad_1]
A severe thunderstorm cloud that formed over the Pacific Ocean in 2018 reached the coldest temperatures on record, according to a new study.
The storm cloud top reached a frightening temperature of minus 167.8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 111 degrees Celsius), colder than any storm cloud measured before. Thunderstorms and tropical cyclones, a circular low pressure storm, can reach very high altitudes – up to 18 kilometers from the ground – where the air is much cooler, according to a statement from the UK’s National Center for Earth Observation.
But this new temperature is on another level. The storm cloud top was about 86 F (30 C) cooler than typical storm clouds, the statement said. The beast of a storm stood about 400 km south of Nauru in the Southwest Pacific on December 29, 2018, and its cloud temperature was picked up by an infrared sensor on board the US satellite NOAA-20 orbiting the planet.
Related: 10 scientific records broken in 2020
Storms typically spread out in the form of an anvil when they reach the top of the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. But if a storm has a lot of energy, it will propel itself into the next layer, the stratosphere. This phenomenon, known as the “overflow summit”, pushes storm clouds to very high altitudes, where it is very cold.
Crossing peaks is “reasonably common,” according to lead author Simon Proud, a researcher at the National Center for Earth Observation and the University of Oxford. told BBC. Typically, an overshoot peak cools by about 12.6 F (7 C) for every mile it climbs in the stratosphere, he said.
But this storm was particularly extreme. “This storm has reached an unprecedented temperature that pushes the limits of what current satellite sensors are capable of measuring,” Proud said in the statement. “We have found that these really cold temperatures seem to be becoming more and more common.”
In the past three years, scientists have recorded the same number of extremely cold temperatures in clouds as in the previous 13 years, he added. “This is important, because thunderstorms with cooler clouds tend to be more extreme and more dangerous to people on the ground due to hail, lightning, and wind.”
This particular storm may have been fueled by a combination of very hot water in the area and eastward moving winds, according to the BBC. However, it is not known why these colder temperatures in thunderstorm clouds are becoming more common.
“We now need to understand whether this increase is due to our changing climate or if it is due to a ‘perfect storm’ of weather conditions producing extreme thunderstorm outbreaks in recent years,” said Proud.
The results were published on March 22 in the journal Geophysical research letters.
Originally posted on Live Science.
[ad_2]
Source link