#evaporation — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Nicole Sharp @[email protected] · 2026-08-07 · 15:00 UTC

Salt and Dunes

Photographer Barbara Brown captured these striking aerial views in Namibia. Coastal dunes and saltworks feature in the photos from Walvis Bay, where wind, waves, evaporation, and humankind have shaped the landscape. The colorful and dendritic dune images come from Sossusvlei, where the ephemeral Tsauchab River ends in the Namib Desert. Recent flooding left its mark on the dry landscape. (Image credit: B. Brown/IAPOTY; via Colossal)

#dunes #evaporation #fluidDynamics #fluidsAsArt #geophysics #physics #planetaryScience #science

#dunes #evaporation #fluiddynamics #fluidsasart #geophysics #physics

💧🌏 Greg Cocks @[email protected] · 2026-07-23 · 04:30 UTC

Global Performance of #RemoteSensing Based and Reanalysis-Driven Models to Estimate Open Water Evaporation
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https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR042363
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“ABSTRACT: Evaporation plays an essential role in the water cycle, influencing local and regional climates while directly impacting water availability in lakes. However, directly measuring evaporation over water bodies remains challenging due to the high costs of installing and maintaining the required in situ instrumentation. Although several remote sensing algorithms have been providing evaporation estimates, the lack of a global validation hinders our understanding of their relative uncertainties and performances across different regions. Here, [they] analyze[d] the performance of a suite of models that leverage satellite data and meteorological reanalysis to estimate evaporation over lakes worldwide. [They] compare[d] three remote sensing-based models, one reanalysis-driven model and one ensemble approach, using in situ observations from 27 lakes representing a diverse range of geographic and climatic regions. [Their] results demonstrate that, overall, the ensemble outperformed any individual model in terms of accuracy, with a RMSE and a bias of 1.3 and 0.3 mm/day, respectively. These findings highlight the benefits of using an ensemble approach to estimate open water evaporation with satellite-based models at the global scale, leveraging the unique strengths of each model. For the individual models, differences in the representation of heat storage changes and advection effects led to lower values of RMSE and bias, depending on the location and depth of the lakes. This study sets the path for future improvement of open water evaporation algorithms globally, while remote sensing techniques are proven satisfactory to monitoring of water loss in lakes globally, an essential step toward effective large-scale water resources management.
PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: Water loss through evaporation in lakes and reservoirs directly affects water availability, which highlights the need to monitor these losses. However, measuring evaporation in situ is challenging and expensive. An alternative is to estimate evaporation using remote-sensing models and compare these estimates with in-situ data to verify their accuracy. Here, [they] evaluated four models and their ensemble (the models' mean value) using measurements from 27 lakes and reservoirs worldwide. [They] found that the ensemble presented higher accuracy and consistency than any individual model because it benefits from the strengths of each model. This approach can guide future improvements in estimating open-water evaporation, which is essential for large-scale water-resource management…”
#global #mapping #earthobservation #GIS #spatial #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #model #modeling #water #hydrology #surfacewater #waterbody #lake #reservoir #evaporation #evapotranspiration #watercycle #weather #meteorology #usecase #waterresources #watermanagement #waterloss #regional #estimate #policy #planning #instrumentation #comparasion

#remotesensing #global #mapping #earthobservation #gis #spatial

LeidenForce @[email protected] · 2026-06-29 · 07:12 UTC

Droplets in dense sprays live much longer than expected. The surrounding vapor saturates locally, delaying evaporation.

What controls the system is not the droplet, but the evolving vapor field.

🔗 https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/abstract/10.1103/ms1r-7jb9

#PhaseChange #Evaporation #Turbulence #Droplets #Physics

#phasechange #evaporation #turbulence #droplets #physics

Nicole Sharp @[email protected] · 2026-06-26 · 15:00 UTC

Vanishing Spirits: Cognac

Years ago, photographer Ernie Button discovered an intriguing stain left behind in his whiskey glass after the last drops evaporated. That discovery led both to beautiful images and an entire scientific paper analyzing how the alcohol, surfactants, and polymers in the whiskey combined to leave such a uniform stain. Over the years, Button continued investigating liquor stains, looking at gin, rice whisky, and aging effects. Here, he’s turned his lens to cognac, producing stains that look like oil slicks, aerial landscapes, and even cartoonish faces! (Image and submission credit: E. Button)

#alcohol #chemistry #evaporation #fluidDynamics #fluidsAsArt #marangoniEffect #physics #science

#alcohol #chemistry #evaporation #fluiddynamics #fluidsasart #marangonieffect

Nicole Sharp @[email protected] · 2026-03-06 · 16:00 UTC

“Crystal Garden – Seasons”

In this latest project, the Beauty of Science team explores colorful crystallization as chemicals precipitate out of evaporating solutions. The variety of shapes and colors is incredible. To see many more of these crystalline “gardens,” check out the video below and the project’s webpage. (Video and image credit: W. Zhu/Beauty of Science; via Colossal)

https://vimeo.com/1155318039?fl=pl&fe=cm

#crystalGrowth #evaporation #fluidDynamics #fluidsAsArt #physics #science #timelapse

#crystalgrowth #evaporation #fluiddynamics #fluidsasart #physics #science

Nicole Sharp @[email protected] · 2024-12-24 · 16:00 UTC

Active Cheerios Self-Propel

The interface where air and water meet is a special world of surface-tension-mediated interactions. Cereal lovers are well-aware of the Cheerios effect, where lightweight O’s tend to attract one another, courtesy of their matching menisci. And those who have played with soap boats know that a gradient in surface tension causes flow. Today’s pre-print study combines these two effects to create self-propelling particle assemblies.

The team 3D-printed particles that are a couple centimeters across and resemble a cone stuck atop a hockey puck. The lower disk area is hollow, trapping air to make the particle buoyant. The cone serves as a fuel tank, which the researchers filled with ethanol (and, in some cases, some fluorescent dye to visualize the flow). Like soap, ethanol’s lower surface tension disrupts the water’s interface and triggers a flow that pulls the particle toward areas with higher surface tension. But, unlike soap, ethanol evaporates, effectively restoring the interface’s higher surface tension over time.

With multiple self-propelling particles on the interface, the researchers observed a rich series of interactions. Without their fuel, the Cheerios effect attracted particles to each other. But with ethanol slowly leaking out their sides, the particles repelled each other. As the ethanol ran out and evaporated, the particles would again attract. By tweaking the number and position of fuel outlets on a particle, the researchers found they could tune the particles’ attractions and motility. In addition to helping robots move and organize, their findings also make for a fun educational project. There’s a lot of room for students to play with different 3D-printed designs and fuel concentrations to make their own self-propelled particles. (Research and image credit: J. Wilt et al.; via Ars Technica)

#3DPrinting #CheeriosEffect #DIYFluids #evaporation #flowVisualization #fluidDynamics #marangoniEffect #physics #science #surfaceTension