Starship Asterisk*

APOD Description wrote:A sugar cane field from one of the historic region's local farms lies in the foreground.

apodman wrote:http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090509.html

APOD Description wrote:A sugar cane field from one of the historic region's local farms lies in the foreground.

All I see is sugar cane standing in the foreground. The field is out of frame. It must have been cropped.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/05/08/brazil.floods/ wrote:
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) -- The death toll from flooding that has covered large parts of Brazil continued to rise Friday, with the government reporting seven new fatalities, bringing the total to 38. The rain-induced floods left nearly 800,000 people displaced, according to the Brazilian civil defense agency.

Floodwaters reach almost to the tops of some homes in Piaui state in Brazil:


Rain has fallen steadily in some parts of the country for more than two weeks and is forecast to continue for another 10 days. World Vision, a relief agency working in Brazil, predicted it could take 30 days for flood waters to recede. Communities in 10 states have been swamped by the floods, though most of the fatalities have occurred in the country's northeast, officials said.

Meteorologists and other weather specialists are divided over the cause of the downpours, particularly in the normally dry northeastern section of the nation. Some say ocean temperatures are to blame, while others say deforestation has led to the climate change. Brazil has been devastated by rain-swollen rivers for months. Flooding in the southern part of the nation in November and December killed more than 120 people and left about another 30 missing.

neufer wrote:"Clear skies over the city of Campos (near the Tropic of Capricorn) may be due in part to abnormally cold South Atlantic waters" ...

"However, these same cold Atlantic (Tropic of Capricorn, as well as, north Equatorial) waters may have pulled the Equatorial Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) from [its] normal position over the mouth of the Amazon to the dry scrub deserts of Eastern Brazil" ...

orin stepanek wrote:I knew when the archive called it Starry Night in Brazil that we had another Milky-way picture again! That's OK though; it's still a neat photo! 8)

apodman wrote:

neufer wrote:"Clear skies over the city of Campos (near the Tropic of Capricorn) may be due in part to abnormally cold South Atlantic waters" ...

"However, these same cold Atlantic (Tropic of Capricorn, as well as, north Equatorial) waters may have pulled the Equatorial Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) from [its] normal position over the mouth of the Amazon to the dry scrub deserts of Eastern Brazil" ...

Abnormally cold? Pulled from its normal position?
Ain't this nature? Ain't nature normal?

apodman wrote:If we ain't careful, the pro- and anti-AGW crowds will jump on this topic too.

neufer, or Shakespeare, or somebody wrote:HAMLET: Whose grave's this, sirrah?

Gravedigger: Mine, sir.

HAMLET: I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

Gravedigger: You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

HAMLET: 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

Gravedigger: 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to you.

Robbie Robertson wrote:a Yankee laid him in his grave ...
... you can't raise a Caine back up

neufer wrote:"Clear skies over the city of Campos (near the Tropic of Capricorn) may be due in part to abnormally cold South Atlantic waters" ...

"However, these same cold Atlantic (Tropic of Capricorn, as well as, north Equatorial) waters may have pulled the Equatorial Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) from [its] normal position over the mouth of the Amazon to the dry scrub deserts of Eastern Brazil" ...

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=38655 wrote:
<<The overall anomaly pattern shows that the ITCZ remained locked over northeastern Brazil instead of migrating northward over French Guiana, Suriname, and Guyana as it would normally do. One possible reason for this change in the ICTZ has to do with what is known as the North Atlantic Oscillation. The oscillation describes changes in the relative strengths of two semi-permanent atmospheric pressure features over the North Atlantic: the Icelandic Low and the Azores High.

• 
  The [temperature/pressure] patterns for January, April, July, and October,
  are displayed so that the plotted value at each grid point represents the temporal
  correlation between the monthly standardized height anomalies at that point.

When the index is positive, the pressure features are stronger. The NAO became strongly positive at the beginning of May, indicating that the Azores High was stronger than normal. As a result, stronger-than- normal trade winds from the northern hemisphere can flow in towards the ITCZ in the southern hemisphere. These winds not only create a surge in moisture into the ITCZ, but they can also impede its movement both directly and indirectly by blowing additional warm ocean surface waters southward.>>