You are browsing the archive for September 2011 - Page 4 of 4 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
3 September 2011
So Much For That Huge Hole in Climate Science
Below is the editorial in REMOTE SENSING today announcing that the paper written by Spencer and Braswell, was deeply flawed and should not have been published. The story (as of Friday evening U.S. time) is now the most viewed on the BBC World-wide website and to say it was a major topic of conversation in the Earth science world would be an understatement. If researchers in a particular field begin …
2 September 2011
Tropical Storm Lee May Swamp Louisiana- and Maybe MS. & Alabama
The NWP guidance continues to indicate very heavy rains over the Gulf Coast and some models are squeezing out over 15 inches of rainfall in spots. It seems likely that this system will move very slowly and still be dumping heavy rains over Alabama on Tuesday. If the past is a guide ( and it is), then we could see flooding well inland from Lee. As it was with …
The Hubble Road Show
The story of Hubble and the simply amazing discoveries it’s made possible is largely unknown and many young people do not even know that if it were not for a daring space shuttle mission, it would have been nearly worthless. In a country that is at the bottom of the heap in science literacy (among industrialized nations), this is one good idea. Anything that serves to inspire and kindle interest …
1 September 2011
No doubt about it- There is trouble brewing in the Gulf
Strong tropical wave in the Gulf along with satellite based wind obs (ASCAT). From CIMMS. Update: TD 13 has formed and advisories have started from NHC. There is growing concern among my fellow forecasters tonight over the tropical wave in the Gulf. A late recon plane report indicates a tropical depression may be forming and numerical weather prediction models (NWP) are indicating development into a tropical storm over the …
A Lonely Speck In The Great Enveloping Cosmic Dark
I know have posted it before but this demands a reprise for Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot: Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, …
NHC missed the Irene Forecast?? I Think Not.
Every meteorologist/forecaster I know agrees that the NHC forecasters did an amazing job on Irene. Yes, the intensity forecast was a little high on the landfall forecast for N. Carolina, but the skill in intensity forecasts is still a much bigger problem than track and the 24 hour forecast was quite close. There are few weather obs on the outer banks and I suspect the winds were higher than recorded …
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.