You are browsing the archive for November 2010 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
30 November 2010
Warming Lakes and Giant Bubbles To Round Out November
There has been a lot of interesting science over the past few days. Every time I think about writing a post about one thing, I see something new! So here is a little about a bunch of things that caught my eye. The New York Times did an excellent piece on sea level rise and Greenland’s ice melt. Having spent two weeks in Greenland at NEEM in July, this caught …
24 November 2010
More Chimneys (See Magma Cum Laude) and a Diamond Dust Pilar
Magma Cum Laude has a great post with a shot of the “chimneys” in Upstate New York. Here is mine. This chimney is in Banff Nat. Park, just outside of Banff, Alberta. A few days later I saw this. The photo was taken at 4,000 meters, on top of Telescope Mountain, above Banff. It was very cold (-25C) and the air was very dry. Tiny ice crystals in the air …
21 November 2010
Autumn Colours
For those who live in certain parts of the World, these past few weeks are the most beautiful time of year. The spectacle of autumn colours is one of nature’s most awesome displays. I thought I would share some of it from my part of the planet. These are all from my yard in Northeast Alabama. Sadly, only a fraction of the humans on Earth see these colours. The most …
19 November 2010
The Trip To Grandma’s House Is Looking Cold!
Next Wednesday will be the busiest travel day of the year. This means a lot of questions for weather forecasters like myself. So here’s a bit of what we are looking at as we head into the weekend before Thanksgiving. The surface charts show the coldest air of the season has settled into Alberta and Saskatchewan. At Noon today (Central time) it was -19C (-2°F) in Saskatoon! The surface chart …
18 November 2010
NOAA-2010 tied for warmest year on the temperature record.
Last week, NASA released the October data and today the National Climate Data Center (NOAA) has released their independent analysis. This past October was the 8th warmest globally, and 6th warmest looking at land temperatures only. What will actually make the news is the January through October temperatures. They are tied with 1998 as the warmest on record. With La Nina acting to cool the planet right now, this is …
Did The Media Miss The Boat on the Youngest Black Hole?
You likely heard about it a few days ago. NASA announced the detection of a supernova turning into a black hole. It was big news and justifiably so. The story starts back in 1979 when an amateur astronomer observed a supernova. It was the third one seen in 1979 and thus named 1979C. Yes all that astronomical numbering is real complicated you know;). You probably know that a supernova marks …
16 November 2010
Chemical Party
I had no intention of posting another YouTube video today, but this one just has to be shared. Is this why the EU countries are so far ahead of the U.S. in math and science? Maybe.
15 November 2010
How the Large Hadron Collider Works and Why It’s Important
You have likely heard about the Large Hadron Collider. You probably even now they are searching for an elusive atomic particle called the Higgs Boson. Want to know why it’s so important and just how incredible the LHC machine is? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JMpDLWdiTQ Watch this video and then watch an explanation by Brian Cox that I posted last week.
12 November 2010
Floating layers of snow-and an illustration of Occam’s razor
Georg von Tiesenhausen emailed me some amazing pictures today. They appear to show floating layers of snow surrounding trees. Pretty cool, no??So what caused this?
Dr. von Tiesenhausen has an explanation that is very thoughtful.
10 November 2010
Power Bracelet Quackery Spreads To Universities
No blog post I’ve ever written has had more comment than the one about these so called “magic power bracelets” being sold on cable TV. You know the ads- They promise this little bracelet will harness your bodies natural energy field and correct all kinds of problems. Issues like balance and the sudden urge to eat dog food among others. They don’t, however, seem to correct the urge to throw …
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.