You are browsing the archive for November 2015 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
30 November 2015
Spotting Rough Air from Space
Look at those thin clouds over Florida. Those are transverse cirrus clouds, and they look like mares tails from the ground, but they can also be a clue to some rough air. The winds aloft are from the northwest over Florida, but farther north they are from the west. The jet stream is crossing the area at the top of the image with winds of 55 to 70 mph, yet …
29 November 2015
Some Thoughts About The Coming Winter: Part One
This time of year it’s the number one question that every meteorologist hears: “What’s the winter going to like??” The correct answer is, “We can’t predict the weather 3 months in advance with any real accuracy.”. That said, we can make some decent guesses about the climate patterns that we may see, in some areas more than others. First, let me show you why we really cannot use numerical weather …
What A Cold Front!
A rather incredible surface temperature chart greeted meteorologists this afternoon. An extremely sharp frontal boundary separated very warm weather from unusually cold. Behind the front, temperatures were 10-20 degrees below average, and ahead of it 10-15 degrees above average, and in some spots the departure from normal was even greater. Look at the temperatures at 1 PM EST and you can see that towns in western MS were reporting temps. …
25 November 2015
AGU, AMS, AAAS, and Other Top Science Societies Tell Texas Congressman To Stop It
The letter below was sent to Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, one of the top science denier’s in Congress, who happens to chair the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. That’s right, I said the chair of the science committee is one of the top science deniers in the Congress. That’s scary enough, but his attack on Dr. Tom Karl, the head of the NOAA National Climate Information Center, is …
22 November 2015
Scientific Method and The Better Angels of Our Nature
If you spent several years at a large university with foreign students, or more than a few nights outside of North America (riding a tour bus with friends and neighbors does not count), then chances are the last couple of weeks have been very unsettling. You no longer think that the ugly history of the 20th century could never again happen, and you may fear that history is indeed repeating …
17 November 2015
I’ve Never Seen Hail Like This Before
Rain drops and hail stones need something to form around, and we refer to this as condensation nuclei. The image below shows something else though. A tornado in the Texas panhandle last night picked up stalks of corn, and lifted them high into the atmosphere, where water froze on it, turning it into a hail stone. The picture was taken by Johnny Goodson of Pampa,Texas. That was one powerful updraft, …
16 November 2015
El Nino Warms Equatorial Pacific To Record Levels
The 2015 El Nino continues to be one of the strongest ever measured and the weekly temperatures this week have passed the 1997 event, which was the strongest on record. The El Nino index is based on a running average, so technically this El Nino has not passed the 97 event, but we now have a new record of warm water in the area, where El Nino is measured. The …
14 November 2015
We’re Crossing an Important Threshold, and Almost Nobody Is Noticing
Read my fellow AGU Blogosphere Callan Bentley’s post:
12 November 2015
Wise Words from The Sane World: Thank You’s Instead of Subpoenas
There is more from Science on climate, and Climate Central folks have a good summary of some new research regarding the big melt in Greenland.
11 November 2015
The Geopolitics of a Changing Climate
My friend Bud Ward over a Yale Climate Connections tipped me to the video below. Something well worth a watch, and it would make a great topic of discussion in a high school/college political science class. I’m not talking about debating the science though, If a student doubt the science, tell them about how peer review works, and warn them about being deceived by conspiracy theory promoters. Kerry Emanuel is …
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.