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You are browsing the archive for February 2013 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.

28 February 2013

The Oceans Like You Have Never Seen Them Before

Here is what NASA had to say about this video- This video provides a global tour of sea surface salinity using measurements taken by NASA’s Aquarius instrument aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, from December 2011 through December 2012. Red represents areas of high salinity, while blue represents areas of low salinity. Aquarius is a focused effort to measure sea surface salinity and will provide the global view of salinity variability needed …

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24 February 2013

Earth Viewer App Show Where Your Town Was 60 Million Years Ago

I ran across a great science app this week. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has an app in the online Apple store showing the geological periods, along with where the continents were during each of them. It also indicates the percentages of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at that time as well. Additional graphs show the Earth’s temperature and CO2 levels from the beginning of the Cambrian to …

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21 February 2013

An Example of Good Science Journalism

This is a repost from the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media- Less Snow but More Blizzards… AP’s Explanatory Journalism Trumps ‘Brazen Contradiction’ AP science reporter Seth Borenstein sets a high bar for explanatory journalism with piece on how declining snowfall and a heavy blizzard can both be linked to a warmer climate. “Scant snowfall and barren ski slopes.” And “a whopper of a blizzard.” It’s what climate skeptics see …

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20 February 2013

Communicating Climate Change In A Responsible Way

My friends Ed Maibach at George Mason University, and Meteorologist Jim Gandy in South Carolina were featured on NPR’s Morning Edition on Tuesday. Dr. Maibach has been researching climate change communication for several years now, (Full disclosure, I was on an advisory committee for a couple of his studies.)  and it’s well worth a listen. A lot of on air meteorologists are downright afraid to mention climate change on air because they will often get angry emails from viewers (who believe it to …

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17 February 2013

Seriously Behind; U.S. Near the Bottom In Weather Forecast Computer Power (Guest post by Cliff Mass)

Besides the increasing gap in weather satellite technology, Europe and Japan are also well ahead in computer power available for numerical weather prediction models. Almost every U.S. forecast meteorologist this winter has relied on the global model from the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, (based in London) rather than the NOAA Global Forecast system. Short range forecasts are handled well by the NOAA high-resolution models centered over North America, but for forecasts beyond three days a global model is needed. …

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16 February 2013

Boston Weather Legend Harvey Leonard on the Great Blizzard and Climate Change

I see Harvey Leonard once a year at the AMS Broadcast Conference and I can tell you that he has the respect of every meteorologist who works in TV. He is a household name in Boston, and over the years when I’ve been asked for a forecast for Boston, I always note at the end to “Turn on Harvey Leonard on the local news while your there, you will get …

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15 February 2013

Meteor Crashes Into Russia Near Ural Mountains. Injuries Reported (Update with new video)

Now with sound. Is this a coincidence with the passage (in a few hours) of the near miss asteroid 2012 DA14?? Possible I guess, but darn suspicious. Any Astronomy experts out there??

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13 February 2013

Five Things We Must Teach American Students About Science

This is the last of a three-part series of posts on the fundamental concepts of science we need to teach American students. Here is Part One and Part Two. People wrap themselves in their beliefs, and they do it so tightly that you can’t set them free. Not even the truth will set them free. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, they are even entitled to their opinion about progress, …

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12 February 2013

The Fundamentals of Science We Need to Teach Our Students (Part Two)

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”  ― Christopher Hitchens This part two of a two-part post. Please read PART ONE first. (I’ll warn you it is my longest post ever, but hopefully it will be worth your time.) I want to share a couple of more snippets from the essays responding to the question “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive tool kit?” The responses …

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11 February 2013

The Fundamentals Of Science That American Students Are Not Learning

There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute- Joseph Bessimer Con-Man Do you take vitamin C when you get a cold? Have you considered buying those pills for your prostate (hawked by a sports broadcaster on TV), or looked into  those copper bracelets that channel your body’s natural energy to make you feel more alive??  Having trouble sleeping and tried taking some melatonin, or some other “miracle cure”. If so, you’re not alone! A large percentage of Americans …

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