Posted in Photos, tagged arctic, climate, climate science, global warming, ipy, meteorology, nature, norway, outdoor, photography, physics, polar research, research, scandinavia, science, sea-ice, svalbard, water, weather, winter on December 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I have just uploaded a new photo album from a scientific cruise near Svalbard in the Arctic in March, 2008. We spent a week on a Norwegian coast guard icebreaker, deploying instruments for measuring radiation over the sea-ice and, more importantly, testing a tiny remote-controlled aircraft. This little thing can record vertical profiles of wind, temperature and humidity in the lower atmosphere. See more pictures here
Posted in Photos, tagged air, atmosphere, climate, cloud, fjord, hardanger, landscape, lcl, lifting condensation level, meteorology, mist, morning, mountain, nature, norway, outdoor, scandinavia, scenery, scenics, sea, stratification, stratus, summer, tourism, travel, water, weather on July 23, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I captured this image this morning in Lofthus, one of the major tourist destinations in Western Norway. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the sharply defined cloud layer looked very beautiful against the mountains. It clearly shows the “lifting condensation level”, the exact height where the stratified air is cold enough for the water vapor in the air to condense. The picture was taken handheld with my Canon 40D and a Canon EF 24-105 f/4L lens. I used four frames of the same scene to create the panorama image in my banner.
This image is priced at $50 with SnapVillage.
Posted in Photos, tagged background, blade of grass, clean, close-up, detail, dew, drop, environment, freshness, green, life, macro, nature, plant, rain, raindrop, summer, water, weather, wet on July 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »
You can get a good photo in any kind of weather. Today was gloomy with heavy rain, but as it lightened up a bit in the early evening, I went to my neighbour’s garden with my macro lens and a tripod. This kind of shot is difficult to get right because you want a fair amount of depth of field and a background blur at the same time. I took this one using manual focus at f/8 with a shutter speed of just 1/5 second to keep the ISO at 100. The sharpness is pretty good overall, although only the centre is fully in focus. The image has not been sharpened.
Posted in Photos, tagged air, aircraft, airliner, atmosphere, cirrus, climate change, cloud, combustion engine, condensation, condensation trail, contrail, energy, engine, environment, exhaust, fuel, global warming, h2o, humidity, hydrocarbon, ice, meteorology, moisture, physics, pollutant, pollution, saturation, stratosphere, temperature, vapor trail, water, water vapor on July 5, 2008| 1 Comment »
This picture was taken with my new Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens, simply because it was the lens that was on my camera. I was testing my lens on flowers and insects when I suddenly looked up and saw the perfect contrails on the perfect blue sky. I took three shots with manual focus, and this was the sharpest one. It just proves that this lens has many uses. This image is priced at $50 (royalty-free) as part of the PhotoShelter Collection.
Being a meteorologist, I feel compelled to explain what contrails are. As jet aircraft enter the cold air just below the stratosphere, they trigger the formation of ice crystal Cirrus clouds. The exhaust of the engines provides the condensation nuclei necessary to produce clouds from the water vapor already present in the surrounding air. According to the IPCC, contrails contribute to global warming.
Erik Kolstad's photo blog 