You are browsing the archive for November 2015 - Page 2 of 2 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
10 November 2015
40 Years Ago Today: Does Anyone Know, Where the Love of God Goes, When the Waves Turn The Minutes to Hours.
Forty years ago today, mariners on the Great Lakes were hanging on for their lives, and over 200 of them did not succeed. An intense low pressure system was crossing the Great Lakes, with winds gusting to well above hurricane force, and waves the size of mountains. That storm would not likely be remembered by many 40 years later but for the loss of a ship and a famous ballad. …
9 November 2015
The 700 Year Old Weather Chart That Gives Me Butterflies
A group of researchers (from over three dozen institutions!) has published a paper in SCIENCE ADVANCES that’s pretty amazing. They used tree ring analysis to reconstruct the summer rainfall maps on a year by year basis for over 1000 years in the past! It’s called the Old World Drought Atlas (OWDA) and it’s based on our modern Palmer Drought Index. If you think this is hoe-hum, then you don’t get …
7 November 2015
When Facts Don’t Matter
Last month, I wrote a two-part post last month about the psychology behind science denial. I thought it worth sharing, because understanding how your brain makes massive judgement errors can lead to fewer of them! Now, Joe Hanson at It’s OK To Be Smart has produced a great video that summarizes the psychology of science denial, and it’s really worth watching. While at a weather conference in Oklahoma City last …
6 November 2015
Satellite Detects Food Chain Impact of El Nino
El Nino is not just a warming of the surface waters in the East Pacific, the depth of that warm water increases as the thermocline lowers. This keeps nutrient rich colder waters from upwelling to the surface, impacting the very bottom of the food chain. NASA has a cool page (with much more info) where you can toggle back and forth and see the drop in chlorophyll here. How you …
Someone Needs Some Support
Food science is way out of my knowledge base but when I see someone who is doing great science communication being hounded away from it, I want to help. Kevin Folta has a popular podcast about food science called Talking Biotech. Unfortunately, the following note was posted on his Facebook page today: I think the following quote from Isaac Asimov sums up the state of affairs we find ourselves in these …
Did Climate Change Make “This” Storm Worse? Perhaps.
The AMS has published its annual look at how climate change may have impacted certain major weather events, and it makes for some fascinating reading. This kind of research is called an attribution study, and they can be very informative. One of the most famous, was done by Dr. Ben Santer (Nat. Academies) that showed how different greenhouse warming looks vs. warming due to an increase in energy from the …
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.