You are browsing the archive for July 2009 - Page 2 of 2 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
11 July 2009
To Quote Randy Quaid in Indep. Day- I'm Back! El Nino Returns
El Nino has returned. The NOAA scientists, who monitor the tropical Pacific, sent out the notice this week. Temperatures in what is called the NINO 3.4 region of the Equatorial tropical Pacific, have increased to the point that we can say an El Nino has begun. (The threshold is an anomaly of .5 C) The official definition is a bit more technical and you can find it on this more …
10 July 2009
Hoax Weather Photos Part Deux
I wrote a post a while back entitled “How To Make Your Local Weather Person Very Happy“. It was about all of these hoax weather photos going around on the internet. Evey Meteorologist I know gets these by the dozen, from well intentioned friends and viewers. We aired a story on this last night. It was fun to put together, and we even interviewed the guy who took the famous …
8 July 2009
Noctilucent Clouds, The Shuttle, Siberia and Myth Busters
Yes they all have something in common. One of the negatives of working as a Meteorologist in TV, is that you are usually the only one on duty who has a background, and avid interest in science. The rest are (and I love them) News Weasels! ( I actually work with a bunch of supremely talented people, who save me from my grammar frequently) One of our directors is the …
7 July 2009
New Clue to Past CO2 Levels??
A fascinating article has been published in Nature this week. It concerns the levels of atmospheric CO2 in the past, and it is sure to elicit plenty of comment in the scientific community. Understand that when a paper like this is published, it is not accepted as an answer, but as only a beginning of a discussion. First some background- trust me this is interesting- even if your not a …
5 July 2009
The Best Used Bookstore in The World? Maybe!
While in Portland, Oregon for a Climate seminar and weather conference last month, I was told that I MUST visit Powell’s books. I’m glad I did. It has to be one of the best bookstores around. My daughter swears that Shakespeare Books in Paris is better, but I have not been in that one. Still, if you are in either city, take this as a hearty recommendation! Powell’s is huge with …
4 July 2009
A Picture Worth a Million Dollars (and it cost about that much too!)
To me the most fascinating part of synoptic forecasting is Satellite Meteorology. I can still remember working in Tulsa at KJRH TV where we had a GOES Unifax machine. Every 15 minutes a high resolution image would spit out. During the day the resolution was 1 km on a visible image. This was good enough to see jet contrails at times. One afternoon a large contrail was visible across Northeast …
1 July 2009
Oregon Institute of Science and Doctor Strangelove
The myth that thousands of Scientist have signed a petition calling climate change a hoax is making the rounds again. It’s really just a repeat of the so called Oregon Petition that claimed the same thing. Let’s put it this way, would you go to a Vet. for a root canal? Time after time, when bright people in other scientific disciplines spend the time to get their questions answered and …
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.