You are browsing the archive for July 2014 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
31 July 2014
Taking The Planets Temperature Is Best Done In Ocean
Your filling the backyard pool for summer, and the kids are asking how long it will take to fill up. Now, you could just use simple math (using the gallons per minute you are adding to the pool divided by the total volume) and get an answer, but lets say you forgot to ask what it was and the internet is down, so you can’t look it up. Well, you …
29 July 2014
Wildfire Smoke Makes Cool East Coast Temps Even Cooler
In spite of an unusually dry and cool air mass over the eastern seaboard of the U.S. this afternoon, the sky is a milky white due to smoke from the wildfires in Western and far northern Canada. An even denser layer of smoke covers the western portions of Hudson Bay as well. Here is the view of the sky over Maryland at 630 PM, and the usual deep blue sky …
27 July 2014
Which Will Reduce Your Carbon Footprint More: Giving up Beef or Your Car?
I listened to a fascinating interview on Science Friday from NPR Friday afternoon, and it’s good news for poultry producers/bad news for cattle ranchers. Giving up beef reduces your carbon footprint more than giving up your car! Click below to listen: Poultry is a big industry here in Maryland, and they should be very happy about this. Poultry is an order of magnitude less carbon intensive than beef production.
Rare Mid-Summer Tornado Outbreak Possible In Midwest Sunday
An unusually strong summer cool front is expected to kick off numerous super-cell thunderstorms Sunday across the Midwest and even into the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast. With thousands of folks at campgrounds and beaches, the possibilities that the storms may catch folks in the open and away from sturdy shelter is much higher than normal. Just this week, an EF1 tornado hit the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and left two dead and over …
25 July 2014
Wildfire Smoke Reaches New York and Ontario
The wildfires from Washington and western/northern Canada continue to send a shroud of dense smoke to areas thousands of miles away. It’s been an almost autumn like afternoon over the Northeast U.S., and here in Maryland we have a deep blue sky with low humidity. No deep blue sky to our north however, where a dense layer of smoke covers southern Canada and New England. Below is the temperature anomalies …
23 July 2014
The Great Facebook Blizzard of 2014
At the AMS Broadcast Meteorology conference last month in Lake Tahoe, I presented a talk about widespread rumors on Facebook last January that a paralyzing snowstorm was coming. This is just one example of the love/hate relationship that meteorologists have with Facebook, and I was quoted in an article on TV News Check about this as well a couple of weeks ago. As I told the reporter for TV News …
21 July 2014
NOAA: Earth Had Its Hottest June On Record
From NOAA: “The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for June 2014 was the highest for June since record keeping began in 1880. It also marked the 38th consecutive June and 352nd consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average global temperature for June was in 1976 and the last below-average global temperature for any month was February 1985. “ FYI May …
The Only Thing More Amazing Than The Moonwalk 45 years Ago Tonight
Exactly 45 years ago tonight, everyone who could see a TV, was in front of one. The clip below is the actual coverage from CBS News that evening. You can actually watch all of the Moonwalk online, and if you were not born yet, I highly recommend you do so. A lot of folks do not realize that when the camera came on (and a lot of folks doubted it …
19 July 2014
State Of The Climate 2013
Tom Karl NOAA NCDC Director: “The climate is changing more rapidly in today’s world than at any time in modern civilization.” (to CBS News ) Entire report here. The ABSTRACT: and this one sidebar is particularly interesting:
18 July 2014
Canada Wildfire Smoke Edging Southward
In the Boreal forests of Canada there have been huge wildfires this month and the smoke is covering much of Canada. Late images this afternoon show the smoke is moving across the Great Lakes states as well, and it may move into the northeast U.S. soon. This part of the world has warmed more than any other over the past 60 years, and Climate Central has a nice write-up …
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.