You are browsing the archive for April 2016 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
29 April 2016
The Consensus on the Consensus Is Itself Overwhelming
My friend Ed Maibach at George Mason Univ. emailed me some interesting abstracts today that show how overwhelming the consensus is on climate change among scientists working in the field. Researchers like Ed and Dr. Oreskes (among others) have shown that the consensus now is nearly unanimous among those in the field. The belief that scientists are divided over the question must be the greatest scientific myth in the United …
27 April 2016
Properly Communicating a Forecast Is Just As Important as Accuracy
The Storm Prediction Center’s outlook for severe weather verified fairly well yesterday. There were not that many tornadoes and the reason for this was likely that the wind shear was not that favorable in spite of an extremely unstable airmass. Still, the graphic above shows where the reports of wind damage, hail, and tornadoes were, and it matches well with the forecast outlook. The storms forecasted for New Jersey developed, …
26 April 2016
GOES 14 One Minute Imagery of Plains Storms
The spare GOES 14 weather satellite can send back an image every minute, and it was turned on today to give forecasters a look at the tornado and severe storms developing in the Plains. We will see this imagery more frequently in the future after the launch of the GOES R weather satellite next fall. You can see the imagery at the link below, but you will need a good …
25 April 2016
Have You Seen These Ultra HD Videos of Earth from the ISS?
NASA has released some incredible video in ultra high-definition of Earth. The video was taken from the ISS and it’s as close as you can get to seeing what the crew on the ISS sees. Go to YouTube directly, and look at the video full screen at highest resolution. Here is another:
22 April 2016
You Can Thank These Three People for Earth Day
I remember very well watching the CBS Evening News (46 years ago today) on the first Earth Day. It was a major story, and I believe Walter Cronkite led the broadcast with it. We know a lot more about our planet now than we did then, and there have been some amazing successes in protecting our environment. We now know something that was not well understood then, and that is the …
20 April 2016
NASA/NOAA/ Data All Show Hottest March Ever
NOAA and NASA both have released the global temp. data and not only did it break a record for the 11th consecutive month (Something that has never happened before), it also broke the previous March record by a record amount. NASA reported the global March temp. was 1.28C above the average from 1950-1980. Keep in mind that there’s a strong scientific consensus that any rise above 2 degrees C in …
15 April 2016
Did Your Spring Come Early??
Did your spring arrive early? Fascinating look at “PHENOLOGICAL Spring” here.
Japan Quake Rocks Seismographs World-Wide. Major Damage Reported
The seismogram (above) at Towson, Maryland clearly shows the strong japan quake that occurred at 11:25 AM EDT this morning. It took about an hour for the first waves of the quake to reach the Eastern U.S., and seismograms around the world have been showing this quake very clearly, including one at Palmer Station in Antarctica. The difference in the arrival time of the “p” and the “S” waves indicates how far away …
13 April 2016
GOES R Launch Date Set: Will Revolutionize Weather Forecasting
I have mentioned the new GOES R frequently, and we are now down to 6 months from the launch. I wrote a post last year about how it will revolutionize forecasting. I also did this on air report on WBOC TV in February, discussing how the launch will mark the beginning of a new era in forecasting and Earth observation. From NASA today: The GOES-R satellite is set to …
11 April 2016
Accuweather Forecasts to 90 Days are Scientifically Indefensible.
The comments from the science community when Accuweather’s started making 45 day weather forecasts were to put it mildly- blistering, and now that they have extended them to 90 days it’s no different. Forecasts of this type beyond 7-10 days (at the most) are simply not possible. If someone tells you otherwise, they’re wrong, because we are in the realm of palm reading and horoscopes here, not science. I agree …
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.