You are browsing the archive for April 2012 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
28 April 2012
A Great Example of The Difficulties In Measuring A Changing Planet
Simon Donner at the Univ. of British Columbia has an interesting piece in EOS (AGU) this week about the difficulties in measuring the changes from climate change. These difficulties tend to be used by those wanting to make a political point to confuse people. A good reason to be very careful of accepting something you read online unless if it does not gel with the overall scientific consensus and the statements of scientific societies like the AMS,AGU, AAAS …
24 April 2012
Burning The Future- On PBS
I watched this documentary on PBS last night. It was very good. The trailer is below: The air-dates on local PBS stations is here. The science is overwhelming that we must quit burning coal, but as Upton Sinclair was right when he said that it is nearly impossible to convince someone of anything if their paycheck depends on it not being true.
East Coast Soaked By Nor-Easter
The 4km NOAA WRF Model did a pretty good job of forecasting the totals. The image below is from the Friday 00Z model run. Central PA. had 2-10 inches of snow out of this storm!
22 April 2012
Happy Earth Day!
I do not think Earth Day should be about feeling guilty over how poorly we’ve treated our planet. It should be about celebrating the accomplishments we’ve made. I spotted this image from the Sierra Club today, we are making progress toward cleaning up our air and water. Education IS the answer, and science can offer solutions. Earth Day cannot pass without me posting Sagan. Just in case there …
21 April 2012
Nor-Easter Poised to Break East Coast Drought (Heavy snow possible as well.)
The drought conditions from Florida to NY have been getting steadily worse, but some real relief is on the way starting tonight. A major Nor-easter is on the way as a rapidly deepening surface low runs up the East Coast on Sunday into Monday. While there may be some isolated severe weather, the main threat with this system is high winds and Gale Warnings are likely to be issued (first one just posted …
Asperatus Over Chincoteague
Chincoteague Island on the eastern shore of the Delmarva Peninsula is famous for its wild ponies. they’ve roamed the island or centuries and the present ponies may be descendants from a doomed ship that sank near shore in the 17th century. It’s also famous for some incredible scenery and a beautiful lighthouse that was rebuilt during the Lincoln Administration. It is not famous for ASPERATUS CLOUDS but the pic above shows a beautiful display of them on Wed. 17 April. …
18 April 2012
Weird Spring Weather- Related To Diminishing Arctic Sea Ice??
Every meteorologist I know is talking about the crazy weather of the last few months: Records broken by margins I would have dismissed as impossible a few years ago. A Texas summer far worse than the brutal heat of 1980, and now a growing drought nationwide. I’ve attended a couple of very interesting seminars recently, and talked with a lot of fellow meteorologists about it. There seems to be growing …
17 April 2012
Drought Relief Coming For The Eastern U.S.??
The Eastern U.S. is below: Now the good news:
16 April 2012
Huge Coronal Mass Ejection On The Sun
This was not pointed at Earth but the sunspot area is rotating around and will face us in a few days…
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.