When Hurricane Gonzalo made landfall on the island of Bermuda as a Category 2 storm, it knocked out power to nearly the entire island, ripped roofs off buildings, downed trees and severely damaged an important shipyard.
But the powerful hurricane also kicked up sediment from Bermuda and its coral reefs, a lot of it.
The animation above, which strings together two recently released NASA photos, shows just that. The first image shows Bermuda on relatively cloud-free October 2, 2014, still 10 days before when Tropical Storm Fay passed over the island and 15 days before Hurricane Gonzalo's landfall. The second satellite image shows Bermuda on October 18, 2014, just hours after Gonzalo's eye passed over the 20 square mile island, stirring up sediment and debris in a pattern that extended more than 18 miles out from Bermuda's beaches.
According to NASA, the murky clouds of sediment are made up of calcium carbonate and sand from the island and nearby coral reefs. The organisms in coral reefs and carbonate rich islands like Bermuda produce large quantities of carbonates, which slowly accumulate and form new islands. In fact, Bermuda's limestone cap formed from this very process.
But particularly strong storms, like Fay and Gonzalo, can send plumes of carbonate build-up out into the ocean, where it then largely dissolves. The whole process is important for climate change, too. As NASA notes, carbonate-rich sediment flows like this one help the ocean balance out the amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs from the atmosphere.
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/nasa-photos-hurricane-gonzalo-bermuda-20141027
No comments:
Post a Comment