Weather
gregladen | March 18, 2016The US NOAA has this video summarizing what they expect for weather in the US as the result of the current, winding down, El Nino:
2016 Spring Climate and Flood Outlook
As a near-record El Niño begins to wind down, NOAA issued its spring seasonal outlooks for flooding, drought, precipitation, and temperature. Flood risk is highest in the lower Mississippi valley and along the Southeast coast. Learn more at: http://go.usa.gov/c7xYx
Posted by NOAA Climate.Gov on Thursday, March 17, 2016
gregladen | December 4, 2014The Road to Paris is a web site created by the ICSU, "...a non-governmental organization representing a global membership that includes both national scientific bodies (121 National Members representing 141 countries) and International Scientific Unions (30 Members)," founded in 1931. If the ICSU had not existed when the UN was formed, the UN would have formed it. Think of the ICSU as the UN of Science. More or less.
(Follow Road to Paris on Twitter.)
Anyway, Road to Paris refers to the 2015 international meetings on climate change, and the purpose of the web site is to provide excellent…
gregladen | September 18, 2014The Polar Vortex hurt. We who lived in it, through it, with it, are like farm animals that got zapped by the electric fence a couple of times ... notice all that long grass growing by the fence. Stay away. It hurt! So we are worried that this will happen again.
It is a reasonable worry, from a scientific point of view. The Polar Vortex visitation last winter was the result of changes to trade winds and jet streams that has characterized our weather for the last few years. One of the big questions on my mind is this: Are wavy jet streams and corresponding changes in the distribution of…
gregladen | March 6, 2014Yes. Not only that, but we can't separate climate change from any single weather event that ever happens, anywhere, no matter what. So just stop saying that we can't. Here's a thought experiment to explain why this is true.
Imagine that climate science is like it is today with a few significant exceptions. First, humans never messed with fossil fuel, using only solar energy. If you need to, you can add in that there are only a half billion humans on the planet because birth control was discovered and implemented earlier in human history and everybody has Obamacare. Second, the climate…
sastyk | March 23, 2012...My laundry pile was empty. I mean, empty. Nothing more to wash.
This unprecedented state of affairs (in a working farm household with 6 people, four of them attracted to mud like magnets) didn't last long - then Asher dumped his muddy socks on the floor and Eli took a bath and pushed the towel into the tub and then the kids got out of the clothes bearing the day's accumulated grime - but I did briefly have no laundry to do. None.
Other people may think this is a weird thing to worry about, but you have to understand my life. There is ALWAYS laundry in the pile, there are ALWAYS…
sastyk | February 1, 2012Counting Out Rhyme
Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.
Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Colour seen in leaf of apple,
Bark of popple.
Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,
Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam,
Wood of hornbeam.
Silver bark of beech, and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
Twig of willow. - Edna St. Vincent Millay
I should be in the woods at this time of year. Instead, because of the unusually warm winter and heavy rains that have left the ground saturated and soggy, rather than frozen and covered with snow, and because I managed to…
hrynyshyn | January 26, 2012George Monbiot usually pays more attention to the climate than weather, but his recent interest in the latter should provide many hours of merriment, and not just in the UK;
This month, I questioned the credentials of the alternative weather forecasters used by the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph and the Sun. I suggested that their qualifications were inadequate, their methods inscrutable and their results unreliable. I highlighted the work of these two companies: Exacta Weather and Positive Weather Solutions (PWS).
Now the story has become more interesting: do the people from Positive…
sastyk | January 3, 2012On January 1, it was 48 degrees on my farm. My sons were at the playground, dressed in sweatshirts and jeans, rather than winter coats and mittens. Their ice skates had yet to be used this year. Their sleds haven't even come out of the garage. Walking out in the warm weather among the goats, I noticed my cowslips and primroses are up and there are buds on the pussy willows.
On the farm, we measure the severity of the winter by the final full barn cleaning before spring - the last one before heavy snow and ice make it impossible to get a wheelbarrow in and out of the barn. In a cold…
hrynyshyn | October 3, 2011Kate at Climate Sight remind us this week of just how challenging it can be for a mainstream media outlet to accurately report on climatology. Even when the reporter gets it right, a headline-writing editor can inject just enough obsfucation to leave readers puzzled or misinformed.
This particular piece of evidence attesting to the need for all journalists to possess more than just a passing knowledge of the field in question involves a new paper in Nature, "Unprecedented Arctic ozone loss in 2011." The implication of the authors' finding is that the Arctic's UV-radiation-blocking ozone…
sciencepunk | September 20, 2011As it's shaping up to be my final days in Devon, me and my #1 Nerd travelled to Barometer World, a pilgrimage we'd been promising to make since the start of summer. As the name suggests, it's a Mecca of meteorological wonder, boasting hundreds of aneroid and mercury barometers, barographs, thermometers, hygrometers and thunder bottles. It's a bargain at £2.50 and I encourage everyone to go.
What intrigued me most of all, though, was the strange crystals attached to many of the old barometers. This, I was told, was storm glass, a curiosity whose origins are hidden in the mists of time.
Back in…
drorzel | September 8, 20111 And the LORD looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
2 And the LORD said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
3 Make thee an ark, and this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred qubits, the breadth of it fifty qubits, and the height of it thirty qubits.
4 And Noah asked the LORD, What is a qubit?
5 And the LORD replied unto Noah, A qubit is a two-level quantum…
sastyk | July 21, 2011As most of the country slowly roasts in one of the worst heat waves so far, I thought it was worth reminding people that one can stay safe in the heat, even without air conditioning. This is important now for the millions of people who don't own air conditioners, who don't want the environmental impact of an air conditioner, or who find themselves for various reasons, without power in the hot weather. As we all know, this is peak season for brown and blackouts.
There are a lot of parallels between dealing with extreme heat and extreme cold in a difficult situation. The first and most…
stoat | December 28, 2010A couple of people have recently complained about the rash of stories explaining how snow-in-December (or, your pet weather event at whatever time of year) is compatible with Global Warming. For example: Cold Spells From Climate Change? (DA) or Yes, they have now said it (TW; I'm sure those two will love being associated).
What I think is correct is to explain that Yes, X has occurred, which perhaps you might not expect given GW, but then showing that it is entirely compatible with GW. Not that it is a particularly exciting game to play, because pretty well any form of weather will be; the…
illconsidered | November 24, 2010As fate would have it, no sooner does a disengenous commenter here point out the unusual cold and snow falling on my hometown of Vancouver, Canada than I come accross this amusing comic from Jen Sorenson:
kcollins | July 28, 2010The DC Weatherams eventFest Coalition is a partnership of government, scientific societies, private enterprise, and institutions in education which focuses on serving as an important resource for information on weather, water, and climate, and how these impact our lives.
Recognized as a "Perfect Festival Partner" for its noted efforts in the event, the Coalition is especially cited by the Festival for assembling an impressive array of exhibits -- including those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the American Meteorological Society -- all under the common theme, or…
drorzel | July 28, 2010Back at the start of the summer, I asked a question about automotive thermodynamics: On a hot day, is it better to open your car windows a crack when making a short stop, or leave them closed? For a long term-- say, leaving your car parked outside all day-- I hope everyone will agree that leaving the windows slightly open is the better call, but the answer isn't as clear for a short stop. There might well be some time during which the open-window car heats up faster as warm air from outside gets in, while the closed-window car holds in the air-conditioned goodness longer.
It occurred to me…
grrlscientist | June 27, 2010tags: Lightning Strikes Three Buildings Simultaneously in Downtown Chicago, Chicago, lightning strikes, nature, weather, storm, wow, your inner child, Craig Shimala, streaming video
For the third time in the last 6 days, another line of nasty storms rolled through Chicago on Wednesday evening. Wednesday's storms towered up to 63,000 ft, unleashed 80 mph gusts, local 3"+ rains and 15,000 cloud to ground lightning strikes in a single hour. Craig Shimala captured the action from his balcony.
Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala.
Music…
sa smith | May 17, 20101. Mute your computer
2. Watch this video. I didnt take this video, but this was our weather in OKC yesterday. Make sure you catch the 2 minute mark:
Oklahoma Hot Tub: When baseball sized hail pelts your swimming pool. LOL!
sastyk | May 10, 2010Just a note to let you all know that we're having weird weather (inch sized hail, temperature shifts of 60 degrees in under an hour, thunderstoms, high winds, hot, freezing.,..) and weird power outages and weird server problems and the formal diagnosis is that the ordinary weirdness that is this blog will continue as soon as my local power company, them that control the weather and ISP providers deem it worthy of their attention.
Sharon
scientificactivist | April 6, 2010Oh boy, it was a real scorcher in our nation's capital today... at least by April standards! With temperatures in some locales surpassing 90 degrees, several area daily high temperature records were broken.
As I sweated through the day, I got to thinking: where are all of those oh-so-clever political cartoonists and global-warming-denying Republican politicians who just a couple of months ago were incessantly using February's record-breaking snows to "mock" the idea of global warming?
(Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...?)
The fact is that this is largely an irrelevant*** question (well,…