You are browsing the archive for May 2014 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
29 May 2014
Cosmos Tackles Climate Change This Weekend.
Science writer Chris Mooney has a nice piece on Mother Jones about this weeks episode of Cosmos. Neil deGrasse Tyson has talked about climate frequently already in previous episodes, but this Sunday, the entire show is about it. There is a preview clip for this weeks show (see below) in which Dr. Tyson walks along a beach with a dog, and explains the difference between weather and climate. You could …
28 May 2014
You Can’t Pick and Choose What Science You Want To Believe.
I am going to break a rule of mine here and post a segment from a cable news show. I care passionately about science education, and this is just about the only issue that I would break my rule, so please, no comments about MSNBC or any other cable news outlet. The segment (by Chris Hayes on MSNBC) was called Unscientific America, and is about the rejection of the new …
27 May 2014
Teachers: Want a Nature/Science Subscription For Your Class?
Oceanographer Robert Grumbine who writes More Grumbine Science is offering to pay for a subscription to Science or Nature for a high school science class, if the teacher will incorporate it into the curriculum. A great way for students to become familiar with cutting edge science. Contact Robert through his blog or on twitter @rgrumbine.
24 May 2014
The Deterministic Dilemma
This is a guest post from Sean Sublette, the Chief Meteorologist for WSET-TV in Lynchburg-Roanoke, Va. It gives you an idea of the issues that forecasters face in attempting to communicate a forecast, and the uncertainty that is always present in any scientific prediction. I’ve thought about it for a few years now. Greg Fishel, Chief Meteorologist at WRAL in Raleigh, mentioned it at a conference a couple of years ago. More recently, …
21 May 2014
Big Picture Lessons from an Unfortunate Tweet
This is a re-post from the blog of Dr. Marshall Shepherd, past president of the American Meteorological Society. (Highlighting is mine) Just in case someone asks, No, there is not enough rotation and scale to produce the Coriolis Effect by spinning the Wheel of Fortune.Now that we have clarified that, I wanted to use the recent Pat Sajak tweet to turn a negative to a positive. I don’t know …
19 May 2014
Ohio Teacher Caught Telling Students That Alaska Research Project is Controlling The Weather
Toledo, Ohio Meteorologist Ross Ellet got a real shock while talking to students at Star Academy Charter School last week. He’d been asked to talk to the students about weather and science, but he got a question that left him totally stunned. One of the students asked him “what kind of job will you get when HAARP is controlling the weather, and you’re no longer needed?”. Now, Ross knew what …
16 May 2014
Can You Say “Waste Of Postage”? I Knew You Could!
The return address says NIPCC, but it’s not a scientific report, it’s actually from the Heartland Institute (which is heavily funded by fossil fuel sources). All three meteorologists at the station I work for received it, and I suspect that nearly every broadcast meteorologist in the country will get one, but for the most part they wasted their postage. I’ve already seen it laughed at by fellow meteorologists on social media, …
15 May 2014
Can You Think Like A Forecaster??
Any ideas?? Pretend you’re a forecaster, and you need to make a short term forecast for the area I have delineated. Will you forecast it to stay clear? I’ll post the answer below tomorrow! Fellow meteorologists, you are NOT allowed to guess! (you should immediately know the answer!). Answer below, but think about it for a few mins. What could have been happening before. What kindof clouds are …
14 May 2014
Worth A Read: Report Highlights Threat To National Security From A Changing Climate
Some Excerpts for those who do not want to read the report, or even the executive summary: Since we published our first report in 2007 on the national security implications of climate change, we have witnessed nearly a decade of scientific discoveries in environmental science, a burgeoning scholarly literature on global complex interdependence among nations, and a series of reactions (or in many cases, failures to react) to projected climate …
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.