You are browsing the archive for August 2016 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
31 August 2016
The Tropics Are Hoppin, and The Danger May Be High Far from the Storms
In the Atlantic, Hurricane Gaston has been producing high swells and dangerous rip currents on the Mid-Atlantic beaches. I was in Ocean City Md. yesterday evening at high tide, and water came up much farther than normal, with powerful waves crashing on the coast. A Hurricane Watch was also posted for the Gulf Coast of Florida north of Tampa this evening, and the depression off the Carolinas may make it …
27 August 2016
What is it About Climate Physics That Makes Politicians Nuts
Two politicians: one right-wing, and one left wing, made stunningly ignorant statements about climate change in the past two weeks. A U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (Ron Johnson) claimed the globe is not warming and actually is cooling, while Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President claimed we will see “yards of sea level rise” in 50 years. First let’s talk about the sea level rise. This is a serious issue, …
25 August 2016
176 Years of Global Temperatures in One Image
From Ed Hawkins at The Univ, of Reading. The visualisation technique of ‘small multiples’ is often used to communicate a simple message. The above example shows maps of temperature change from 1850-2016 – the overall warming trend is obvious even though the details are fuzzy. Technical details: The HadCRUT4.4 dataset is used with anomalies from a 1961-1990 baseline period. An annual average for a particular grid cell and year is …
24 August 2016
30 Deaths from Lightning in the U.S. So Far This Year. 12 From Tornadoes
Meteorologist John Jensenius at NOAA keeps track of the deaths from lightning each year, and I asked him to send me a list of the deaths each month, so that I could share. We are now up to 30, and it is worth noting that 80% of the deaths are male and 20% female, a fact that is not unusual, with far more males rather than females becoming victims each …
Big Trouble Brewing For Southeast U.S.??
Tropical Update : I’m not going to post any specific model data since there is still quite a bit of disagreement, and any individual run this far out is worthless, but that said: My concern that a tropical cyclone will threaten the SE U.S. in 5-7 days is growing rapidly. The system is looking much healthier on the satellite images tonight. Increased convection and shear seems less. The wind shear …
23 August 2016
The Tropical Atlantic is Starting Bubble
Tropical Storm Gaston formed late Monday evening in the Atlantic, and will likely become a hurricane in a few days. It will also likely stay far from land, and recurve into the North Atlantic. Another tropical disturbance in the western Caribbean does bear watching as it might move toward the Bahamas in about 5-7 days. There is a lot of uncertainty though with this system and a large disagreement among …
20 August 2016
Here Is How We Get More Women In Science
I ran across what I think is an important paper in PLOS One this week, and it involves women and STEM careers. Go to any science conference, and you see far fewer women than men, and this paper may have hit on why this is the case. In general, women do not seem to have the confidence that they can get through calculus, and make no mistake about it, it’s …
18 August 2016
NOAA Data Confirms NASA and Japan: July 2016 was Hottest on Record.
From NOAA: For the 15th consecutive month, the global land and ocean temperature departure from average was the highest since global temperature records began in 1880. This marks the longest such streak in NOAA’s 137 years of record keeping. The July 2016 combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces was 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average, besting the previous July record set in 2015 by 0.06°C (0.11°F). …
17 August 2016
You’ll See More and More About Climate on TV Weathercasts. Here’s Why.
I’ve written about this subject many times here, but here is a nice video (from Peter Sinclair, and Yale Climate connections) explaining why broadcast meteorologists around the country can no longer ignore the changing climate. You may recognize a few of us, depending on where you live.
15 August 2016
Another Melted Record- NASA Says July Hottest Month Ever Measured on Earth
From Gavin Schmidt at NASA on Twitter this afternoon: Every month in 2016 has set a new record in the NASA data, but July 2016 was not just a record for July, it was the hottest month recorded. NOAA data comes out later this week (They do an independent analyses). Raw data is here: GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in 0.01 degrees Celsius base period: 1951-1980 sources: GHCN-v3 1880-07/2016 + SST: …
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.