NASA Satellite Snaps Rare Cloud-Free Ireland

coondoggie writes "NASA's Aqua satellite recently snapped a cloud-free shot of Ireland. The cloud-free view is extremely rare as the country is almost entirely cloud covered 50% of the time according to the Irish Meteorological Service, Met Éireann. There are more clouds during the day than at night, and fog is common."

Comments

Go figure

[yeshuawatso]

No wonder they drink so much. Every time they go outside and look up, all they see is a depressing cloud blocking all the sunlight. Being sh*t faced is probably the only way to get the gloom out of the day.

Re:Go figure

[ackthpt]

No wonder they drink so much. Every time they go outside and look up, all they see is a depressing cloud blocking all the sunlight. Being sh*t faced is probably the only way to get the gloom out of the day.

By that same logic you'd find more drunks in London than in Dublin.

Re:Go figure

[yeshuawatso]

Never been to Ireland nor London, so, at this point, I don't have logic, just random ramblings.

Re:Go figure

[Hazel Bergeron]

Ireland learnt its two-decade lesson about monetary policy and raised the cloud tax. The invisible hand of God moved the clouds somewhere cheaper...

(...perhaps to Wales, which is reluctantly under Her Majesty's rule, but allows us some payback in local cloud tax for the support we've loaned to our green neighbours. Britain's main industry is clouds, you see... and only the white ones, since Thatcher abolished the black sooty ones after a wrestling match with Arthur Scargill in 1984.)

Re:Go figure

[Gordonjcp]

I don't know, look at Florida. I can't think of anything more utterly depressing than that relentless heat and glare.

Re:Go figure

[Osgeld]

pet peeve, is it really necessary to quote the fucking post right above yours when your not pointing out a specific part?

quote != reply

Re:Go figure

[ischorr]

Pet peeve - is it really necessary to misspell "you're" as "your", throw in unnecessary profanity, and generally use bad grammar/capitalization/etc?

If you're going to be a pedant on style, at least use good style.

Re:Go figure

[ColdWetDog]

I don't know, look at Florida. I can't think of anything more utterly depressing than that relentless heat and glare.

Trenton, New Jersey?

Re:Go figure

[vertinox]

Never been to Ireland nor London, so, at this point, I don't have logic, just random ramblings.

*whoosh*

Re:Go figure

[pushing-robot]

Because if the parent's post gets modded down or yours gets modded up, people might see your post and not the parent, and wonder what the hell you're replying to.

Bonus points if your post gets shown directly after its GP or GGP, so people think your reply is completely off-topic or your reading comprehension sucks.

Re:Go figure

[shaitand]

"pet peeve, is it really necessary to quote the fucking post right above yours when your not pointing out a specific part?"

Necessary? No. Courteous? Yes. I for one don't want to have to read back through previous posts to figure out which of my posts you are replying to when your response comes up in my messages three weeks later.

Note how you don't have to dig back through the previous posts to know what I'm talking about. Isn't that nice? I think so too.

Re:Go figure

[yeshuawatso]

I've got mod points but can't use them to mod this up funny.

Re:Go figure

[yeshuawatso]

Avoid Arkansas then; nothing but heat, humidity, and tornadoes.

Re:Go figure

[PsychoSlashDot]

im sorry, I did not realize I was on the association of anal retentive english majors page, its just a forum post don't go killing yourself over it

ok so here is why, even though my post was atrocious by professor tightass standards, you still understood it, when one quotes the entire parent for zero reason it makes it harder to filter garbage from comment, cause you see, all the comments are squashed down so only the first line is shown.

but hey if you want all your comments to look like someone is a retarded parrot then whatever, its just a pet peeve, please dont piss your pants

Relax. You're wrong. Get used to it. First up, if you're going to inform someone "you're doing it wrong", it behooves you to do it correctly. If you fail, the consequence is minor; ridicule. So don't get so defensive (and offensive at the same time); you screwed up while criticizing someone. You're fair game.

Second, as to your original complaint, you're still wrong. I can't speak for the rest of Slashdot's users, but I suspect at least some behave as I do. I sometimes deliberately read comments nested two or three deep into a thread. Sometimes it's because I'm intrigued by a couple words that make it into the single-line summary. Having the parent quoted is convenient for me. It saves me having to expand the parent then scroll back down simply to gain the context that I could have had were it quoted in the first place. Simply put, by quoting the parent a post becomes self-contained and meaning-complete. Without quoting it is referential and fragmentary. It is easier to ignore data that is present than it is to obtain information that is not. Philosophically-speaking, parent-quoting is a superior practice.

Thirdly, for my own amusement, I'd like to inform you that it doesn't require an "anal-retentive english (sic) major" to appreciate or produce grammatically correct writing. I'm entirely sure that my post has plenty that a professional could point out as flawed yet I still strive for a higher level of correctness than you can be bothered to. There's one. People who obviously don't even try to be accurate convey an air of laziness. As well, there's an underlying message: "my words are untidy and so too is my mind." Right or wrong, whenever you can't be bothered to capitalize letters, use apostrophes, punctuate, and generally ill-express yourself, you're asking to not be taken seriously. Why bother writing at all if you're not trying to be heard?

Re:Go figure

[digitig]

im sorry, I did not realize I was on the association of anal retentive english majors page

You must be new here.

Re:Go figure

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

Sorry, I'm not in the drunk-finding business

Re:Go figure

[russbutton]

If it wasn't for wheelbarrows, the Irish would still be on all-fours...

Re:Go figure

[dwywit]

Australia calling on line 2

Re:Go figure

[PopeRatzo]

pet peeve, is it really necessary to quote the fucking post right above yours when your not pointing out a specific part?

Yes, it is necessary. Clearly you've never meta-moderated here or you'd understand why quoting the portion of previous post in your reply is important.

Also, it's just good manners. When someone makes a half-dozen points, a three-word post doesn't really help the reading flow for those of us who actually like to follow conversations. I prefer conversations to a list of posts of people just tossing out their words like so many bumper stickers.

You're probably used to Twitter, where there are no conversations, just one bumper sticker after another, at best, and at worst isolated meaningless strings of words, misspelled and tossed out like spit on sidewalk.

quote != reply

Pet peeve: people who are so uncomfortable with the language that they have to try to make a point using logical operators or snippets of code. Nobody here is impressed that you've done a PHP tutorial. This is why we need to have better funding for schools (including trade schools for people like you who have never learned to write clearly and convincingly in their native language).

Re:Go figure

[gstoddart]

No wonder they drink so much. Every time they go outside and look up, all they see is a depressing cloud blocking all the sunlight. Being sh*t faced is probably the only way to get the gloom out of the day.

Funny, reminds me of San Francisco, or what I'm told Seattle is like ... Maybe I was unlucky and always travelled to San Fran mostly in the crappy, damp seaon, but it didn't feel like a happy place to me.

Cold, wet, and miserable do not make for an upbeat environment.

Re:Go figure

[luckymutt]

...to misspell "you're" as "your", throw in...

Hey grammar Nazi asshole - punctuation goes on the inside of the closing quotation mark.
If you're going to be a pedant on grammar, at least use proper grammar.

Re:Go figure

[hutsell]

... and Chiggers.

Re:Go figure

[quietlikeachurch]

Well done sir!

Re:Go figure

[X0563511]

Yea, and hot, bright, and dry do not either.

We enjoy a happy middle-ground.

Re:Go figure

[davester666]

Criminals don't need clouds to drink all day and night.

Re:Go figure

[ModernGeek]

That all depends on the variation of English spoken.

Re:Go figure

[dwywit]

No, but it makes a difference to WHAT we drink. Day=beer, night=beer, dry=beer, wet=beer, snow=whiskey or rum, BBQ=1 glass of red wine permitted, otherwise beer, clear skies=clear beer, cloudy skies=cloudy beer (homebrew or Cooper's). See? It's simple!

Re:Go figure

[ThePromenader]

Normally, drunks find ~you~.

Re:Go figure

[glodime]

Because if the parent's post gets modded down or yours gets modded up, people might see your post and not the parent

Not to worry. The new version of slashcode will hide your post if the parent post is not modded high enough. Even if your post is modded +5.

Re:Go figure

[painehope]

I agree with everything (because they are major pet peeves of mine) but the "unnecessary profanity" bit. If you're trying to make a point, throw in a cuss word. People catch the emphasis.

Re:Go figure

[MartinSchou]

Why bother writing at all if you're not trying to be heard?

Maybe he's trying to be read?

Re:Go figure

[painehope]

Also, it's just good manners

/. and manners? Half of the people on here are kids that should just STFU until they have gotten out of school, their parents' house, and had to work for a living. The other half are people that just need to come out of their lair they've built in their parents' basement other than when they go to work or go pay the pizza boy. Out of those two halves, at least 75% of them need more exercise, and would get more dates if they didn't mention that they play D&D* and then launch into a description of their latest campaign to whatever poor chick gets stuck next to them at the bar. And, coincidentally, 25% of the whole also needs to realize that their little politically correct fairy-tale world will not exist, and if it did it would be the greatest fascist state mankind has ever known. Of those 25%, 100% need to stop referring to WWII-era Nazis whenever I post on a social, as opposed to technical, issue of the article.

* Yes, I play (sometimes). Do I tell women before we've gotten to the mad monkey love stage? Fuck no. If I let a chick read most of the titles of books on my shelves, she'd realize that I'm obsessed with computers, fantasy and science fiction, new and interesting ways to blow shit up, and other things that rate slightly above an ankle monitor in scaring women off.

Re:Go figure

[painehope]

I don't know, look at Florida. I can't think of anything more utterly depressing than that relentless heat and glare.

Trenton, New Jersey?

Try any populated place in Utah. Or any place with water (in Utah, of course). Do you realize that people still shoot each other there over water rights? Yes, I'm a major proponent of the 2nd Amendment, but when I find myself having to shoot my neighbors in order to get water, I'd just fucking move. Well, I'd move anyways. Utah screams "inbreeding!" the way the Bush family screams "hereditary insanity!".

Re:Go figure

[1u3hr]

pet peeve, is it really necessary to quote the fucking post right above yours when your not pointing out a specific part?

Yes, because the one "right above" might not be visible later if it's modded down, or if the reader has different viewing preferences, and then you appear to be calling the wrong person an asshole.

Re:Go figure

[painehope]

Avoid Arkansas then; nothing but heat, humidity, and tornadoes.

I can think of a lot better reasons to avoid Arkansas than those 3 things. When you consider the fact that Bill Clinton was actually one of the better aspects of the state, and it's all down-hill from there, that's a major warning sign in and of itself.

Re:Go figure

[painehope]

No wonder they drink so much. Every time they go outside and look up, all they see is a depressing cloud blocking all the sunlight. Being sh*t faced is probably the only way to get the gloom out of the day.

what I'm told Seattle is like ...

Cold, wet, and miserable do not make for an upbeat environment.

Yeah, but in Seattle you can (a) laugh at the transvestites, (b) any time you want, SPD will find a reason to arrest you and keep you for 6 months (no kidding - they tried to give me a six month sentence for carrying a pocket knife, until they realized that I was from another state, in-town for a convention, and my employer would make a huge stink about them doing so, so instead they gave me 2 years probation and said "no, you don't have to report in, just leave when the convention is over"), and (c) the computer industry is really big there (so a lot of people in Seattle never expect or want to see sunlight anyways).

Re:Go figure

[michelcolman]

I agree. There's no such thing as "unnecessary profanity".

Re:Go figure

[michelcolman]

pet peeve, is it really necessary to quote the fucking post right above yours when your not pointing out a specific part?

quote != reply

I don't see why the decision whether or not to quote a post should be determined by whether or not the post is about fornication.

Re:Go figure

[Noodlenose]

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Re:Go figure

[yeshuawatso]

There are several reasons to avoid Arkansas like any other state, but you have to admit, for a redneck state, we pump out quite a bit: Largest retailer and largest company in the WORLD is here. Largest chicken producer in the USA is here 2nd largest in the World, albeit legally a Delaware Corp. One of the largest medium/up-scale retailers here, the original company that made Verizon the largest wireless carrier in the country, one of the largest oil companies in America and one of the largest companies in the US in general. Not bad for a state with literally backward thinking citizens. May not be as impressive as California, Texas, or New York, but for a state with only 2.5 million people, we hold our own.

As far as Clinton, there is an unspoken 11th commandment in Arkansas: thou shall not speak ill of the nation's favorite President of the 20th century.

Re:Go figure

[Noodlenose]

..a forum that has millions of readers

I think you mean Reddit.

Re:Go figure

[qubezz]

... and Chiggers.

Hey, only we can use that word!

Re:Go figure

[hutsell]

I didn't realize blood sucking ticks were capable of speaking our language--let alone being able to type.

Re:Go figure

[PopeRatzo]

Painehope, you are hopelessly behind the times. Your romantic image of Slashdot as full of parents'-basement-living losers wants its 1995 back.

Stop thinking of Slashdot as a mirror. And, "chick"? Really?

Re:Go figure

[Coren22]

Mmm, beer.

I think I need to get some good beer for tonight.

Re:Go figure

[tehcyder]

We were talking about drinking alcohol, not recycled koala piss or whatever it is you use to make Foster's..

Re:Go figure

[tehcyder]

im sorry, I did not realize I was on the association of anal retentive english majors page

No, they're down the hall. This page is for anal rentntive programming geeks, who can have vicious arguments about the use of whitespace, never mind actual characters.

Re:Go figure

[tehcyder]

Why bother writing at all if you're not trying to be heard?

Maybe he's trying to be read?

Fuck me, you're stupid.

Just for the record "heard/hearing" doesn't just refer to the physical recognition of sounds through the ears. "The shot that was heard around the world" wasn't, in fact, literally heard by everyone on the planet. Most of them read about it later.

Re:Go figure

[tehcyder]

I agree. There's no such thing as "unnecessary profanity".

Cunt.

Re:Go figure

[tehcyder]

Because if the parent's post gets modded down or yours gets modded up, people might see your post and not the parent

Not to worry. The new version of slashcode will hide your post if the parent post is not modded high enough. Even if your post is modded +5.

Genius, where do they keep getting these fantastic ideas from?

Re:Go figure

[tehcyder]

I don't know, look at Florida. I can't think of anything more utterly depressing than that relentless heat and glare.

Yeah, it makes you wonder what anyone sees in it. You lucky, lucky bastard.

Re:Go figure

[tehcyder]

re: your sig

We always welcome new gay posters too. Have fun now!

Re:Go figure

[dwywit]

We make cider, too.

And Foster's isn't considered beer by anyone except its maker.

Looks just like a Little Piece of Heaven

[ackthpt]

I imagine it fell from the sky one day and landed in the ocean very far away...

Good news!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

They finally killed the last male Bundy!

Wow.

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Look how utterly green it is. That's pretty slick...

Re:Wow.

[tehcyder]

They don't call it the Emerald Isle because of its fabulous profusion of natural gemstones, you know.

There I fixed it

[atari2600a]

It was hard to look at, so I ran it through The GIMP's auto-white-balance filter. Was this really that hard for NASA's PR guys to do? http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k196/atari2600a/Ireland_amo_2010284.jpg

Re:There I fixed it

[Anonymous Coward]

That looks awful, and realistic... kind of like high-end LCD monitors.

Re:There I fixed it

[blair1q]

Much better. And it gives you a clearer view of the plume of piss running off the downhill slope into the sea.

Re:There I fixed it

[DerekLyons]

I had no problem looking at it, so why would I want to alter it?

Re:There I fixed it

[Retron]

Hmm, the reason it looks relatively dull is because it was taken in early to mid-March, when the Sun would be only around 35 degrees in altitude (at noon). The same shot in mid-summer (when the sun reaches the high 50s in altitude over Ireland) would look much more vivid.

Re:There I fixed it

[AliasMarlowe]

The NASA image is incomparably better and definitely closer to reality.

Your "enhanced" version is excessively Disney-ish and reminiscent of the color-coding used in atlases, with shades of green and brown which could exist in Ireland only in paintings. I lived 20+ years in Ireland; in March, the greens are dull and/or dark and even when it's sunny the mountains are never such a bright brown. It could make an illustration of some sort in a geography schoolbook, where it is implicit that the colors are false.

Re:There I fixed it

[xaxa]

Hmm, the reason it looks relatively dull is because it was taken in early to mid-March, when the Sun would be only around 35 degrees in altitude (at noon). The same shot in mid-summer (when the sun reaches the high 50s in altitude over Ireland) would look much more vivid.

I've not been to Ireland, but here's a picture taken at 13:08 on 24th February in London (29* solar noon altitude, here). The colours are reasonably accurate (I think that's taken with the camera's default setting). When you get a bright, clear day here it's surprising how vivid everything looks.

Re:There I fixed it

[hcpxvi]

the reason it looks relatively dull is because it was taken in early to mid-March
It was actually taken on 11 October 2010, according to this page http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49687 linked in a post somewhere above here.

Question having RTFA

[MattGWU]

Does anybody know if Ireland owes its greenness to moderate temperatures and moist air? I'm no climatologist but does it perhaps come from the Atlantic Ocean, particularly the warm currents in the North Atlantic Drift, which gives the country a more temperate climate than most others at the same latitude?

T.I.A.

Re:Question having RTFA

[amicusNYCL]

I think that Ireland owes its greenness to moderate temperatures and moist air. The Atlantic Ocean, particularly the warm currents in the North Atlantic Drift, gives the country a more temperate climate than most others at the same latitude. Also, Ireland owes its greenness to moderate temperatures and moist air. The Atlantic Ocean, particularly the warm currents in the North Atlantic Drift, gives the country a more temperate climate than most others at the same latitude.

At least, according to NASA.

Re:Question having RTFA

[Pyrus.mg]

The nice thing about cut and paste journalism is that it makes it easier to find the original source.

The nice thing about cut and paste journalism is that it makes it easier to find the original source, according to Pyrus.mg

Re:Question having RTFA

[stillnotelf]

Does anybody know if Ireland owes its greenness to moderate temperatures and moist air?

I think it's the leprechauns, actually.

Pfft, that's nothing

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

Next up, let's see Beijing without smog.

Re:Pfft, that's nothing

[Born2bwire]

Don't hold your breath.

Wait... that might be a good idea if you are in Beijing.

Nasa original article

[xded]

Nasa original article, with better text, 3 Mpixel images and no ads business going on...

Re:Nasa original article

[Yvanhoe]

We need a +1 "replace the article by this comment"

Leprechauns

[beaker8000]

Will this prove to be a significant step in finally tracking them down and taking their gold? Let's hope so, they've fooled us too long.

Re:Leprechauns

[blair1q]

Cloudless = no rain. No rain = no rainbows. No rainbows = well, you can do the math, there.

I think they're wise to the shenanigans ye be tryin' te pull on Sin Paddy's daih.

Re:Leprechauns

[L4t3r4lu5]

Scientists have also recently found the pot of gold, and it indeed was at the end of the rainbow.

Well, by rainbow I mean "technicolour yawn" and by pot of gold I mean "bowl of used water."

In other news...

[Minwee]

NASA satellites are still trying to confirm the existence of Scotland.

Re:In other news...

[xenobyte]

They were however able to spot a lake with a non-existent monster in it. As the monster was assumed not to exist, the lake and the landmass that contained it was also removed from the data as it was assumed that the satellite accidentally had come to close to the edge of the world and the area traditionally found on old maps labeled "Here Be Monsters" was photographed in error.

Ouch

[kenj0418]

And tomorrow shares of the company that makes Solarcaine will be up 25% after thousands of gingers are exposed to direct sunlight for the first time.

It's a Shadow

[improfane]

It looks suspiciously like a shadow vessel.

Centauri Prime???

IMF

[Dartz-IRL]

Jaysus sake, the IMF are taking even the feckin' clouds away now.

Re:IMF

[MMC Monster]

I figured it's just a rolling blackout to save money that, unfortunately, managed to knock out the Internet connection.

Though I had no idea that NASA had a way to visualize the cloud...

Re:That's almost twice as much as 26%!

[More_Cowbell]

If you're not trying to make a joke, then you're mixing up numbers...

Re:That's almost twice as much as 26%!

[ian_from_brisbane]

Means... half of the time, it has 90%+ cloud cover. I honestly don't get why people can't grasp this concept.

Link to the picture on NASA servers

[Johann Public]

http://3.ly/eringobragh
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Erin Go Bragh!

This is St. Patricks day

[GodfatherofSoul]

I imagine God wants to keep a close eye on those hooligans today of *all* days.

Re:That's almost twice as much as 26%!

[oldmac31310]

and it really does. I know from 25 years of experience!

Steam from distiller clouds Ireland for centuries.

[PDX]

The St. Patrick's day celebrations have emptied all the stills in Ireland. Tomorrow is tank cleaning day. Clouds should reappear to cloak the distilleries when production resumes.

Better link

[AliasMarlowe]

TFS just links to somebody's blog with the low resolution image, and repetition of much of NASA's text. It has no links to better resolution images.

Here's a link to the NASA Image of the Day page, with the same image and much the same text, but with links for larger versions of the image such as this.

Cloud panther

[ericcj]

50% of the time, it's covered every time.

This picture is old, from October 11, 2010

[fortapocalypse]

This picture is low resolution and months old: "The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the image on October 11, 2010..." (source) If I want a picture of f-n Ireland, I want it recent and zoomable, as big as the redheaded noogin on my 12 year old so I can oogle the Irish drinkin their Guinesses no earlier than yesterday. If it ain' Scottish, it's crap!

Cloudy Eire: Site of the World's Largest Telescope

[careysub]

For 72 years - from 1845 to 1917. The Leviathan of Parsonstown was a telescope with a 72 inch (diameter) mirror built by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse on his estate, Birr Castle, at Parsonstown. He was a gentleman astronomer who wished to conduct scientific research from his estate, which explains why such a large instrument was built at such an unsuitable site.

Astronomers have a saying, the three most important features of a telescope are aperture, aperture and aperture. Having the biggest telescope in the world gives you real advantages, despite the lousy weather, and Rosse (nobles being referred by their landed title) discovered the spiral structure of distant galaxies as well as naming the Crab Nebula.