You are browsing the archive for March 2010 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
31 March 2010
Summer Time Blizzard Hits the UK
Just last Sunday the UK switched their clocks ahead one hour for “Summer Time”. North America went to Daylight Time two weeks ago. So imagine the surprise when heavy snow warnings were issued from the Met. Office and snow began to fall across much of Scotland and Northern England. It’s just been a crazy winter. Unseasonably cold in the UK and the Northeast USA.You can blame El Nino for much …
30 March 2010
Holy Cow! Is Mimas a Pac-Man Death Star??
The image on the right is a temperature map of Saturn’s moon MIMAS. The big crater in it is called the Herschel Crater. The image below explains more: So what is causing this?? THEY DON’T KNOW… Yet!
Is Brian Cox The Next Carl Sagan?? My Vote is YES.
Dr. Brian Cox. Rock band musician and physicist. No, really. He played in the rock band DARE with Thin Lizzy’s Darren Wharton. If you’re in the UK and have not seen Wonders of The Solar System on BBC Two, then fire up the iPlayer and watch it. All four episodes that have aired are just superb. They are the only TV productions I’ve seen about astronomy that equals or surpasses …
27 March 2010
Science On The Ice- Part One
One of the main reasons the NSF took Ann Posegate and I to the bottom of the world was to foster student interest in science. This was fine with me because it is one of the main reasons I write this journal and the Wild Wild Weather Page. I’ve just finished putting together a 5 minute slideshow with embedded video about my January trip to Antarctica and the South Pole. …
26 March 2010
Earth Hour This Saturday
You can save a little money, and show you care about our small spinning fragment of solar driftwood by turning your lights off at 8:30pm your time Saturday. Same time even in Nova Scotia!! (Canadian joke- believe me, they are laughing too!) Stole the solar driftwood line from Orson Welles by the way.. Click the image below to learn more:
25 March 2010
Just how thin is the shell of air that surrounds us? This thin!
Grab a globe from any classroom and put a dime on it. Lay it flat. That’s about how thick the layer of atmosphere surrounding Earth is. Now there is some air all the way out to hundreds of miles, but 98% of our protective coating of air is beneath the top of the dime. A gentleman in West Yorkshire has shown visually just how thin our life giving coating of …
22 March 2010
NASA & NOAA- Despite what you heard, it's still getting warmer.
I spent the weekend reading a new paper that is about to be published by 4 of NASA’s top climate researchers. If you follow climate research closely, then it is no surprise. The planet continues to warm and no, it has not stopped. Hansen et.al point out that this recent warming occurs at a time when the sun has been very quiet and in a phase that should be causing …
21 March 2010
Life Always Finds A Way
One of the most fascinating places I visited in Antarctica was Lake Hoare Field Camp. It’s an amazingly beautiful spot. Some have claimed the Dry Valley’s of Antarctic are the most beautiful spots in the World. You won’t find me arguing with them. Why are scientists are so interested in Lake Hoare?? It’s one of harshest climates on Earth. Cold and dry. Very dry. Perhaps one of the driest spots …
19 March 2010
The World's Largest Periodic Table and The Best One Online!
While in New Zealand waiting for the weather to clear in Antarctica, I met a gentleman named Mike Davis. We got to talking while looking at the view from the top of the Christchurch Gondola. It turns out that he is a Chicago college prof who did something really cool. Something right up my alley! He constructed the world’s LARGEST PERIODIC TABLE! Turns out that Mike made a promise. If …
Places of Reverence – Frozen In Time
The only continent that humans did not naturally colonise is Antarctica. As I write this there are only about 250 people on the entire continent. They will be there through the long dark polar night. It will be spring before the New York Air Guard can fly a plane back in. The first person to reach the Pole at the bottom of the world did so just 99 years ago. …
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.