You are browsing the archive for March 2016 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
29 March 2016
This Has Meteorologists Talking Today
An interesting paper came out today, and it has we meteorologists talking. It’s about using sea water temperature patterns in the Pacific to forecast heat waves in the eastern portions of North America. Researchers found that when a certain pattern of water temperatures appeared, there would often be unusually hot weather in the Eastern U.S. about 40-50 days later. A statistical analysis using this method over the years 1982-2013 showed …
27 March 2016
You Can Fool Some of The People All of The Time
Greg Fishel is a fellow meteorologist who works on air in Raleigh, NC, and like me he is not afraid to tell the truth about climate science, in spite of the fact that some his viewers think it’s all a hoax. Like all of us, he often gets messages via email/social media purporting to show that he and every major science organization on Earth is wrong, and he had one …
23 March 2016
Snow and Fire In The Plains
Denver is getting buried by what may turn out to be a historic spring blizzard. Twenty inches, and it’s still falling. The airport has shut down, and travel is nearly impossible on area roads. The winds are gusting to 55 mph in Denver and the snow is pouring down, while the visibility is not much better than 300 meters. It’s a real high Plains blizzard, and it is bringing Denver …
21 March 2016
The Equinox from Space
Below is the view from the new Japanese weather satellite Himawari. The Himawari can send back true colour images. Below is the image from the Meteosat at the Solstice on Dec. 21st of 2015. Notice the 23.5 degree tilt to the terminator.
19 March 2016
This Is Why The Record Warmth is Not Natural
Lots of talk about the global record temperatures that both NOAA and NASA (They do separate calculations) announced this week, but here’s something that doesn’t get as much attention, and should. Look at the graph above, it shows two different temperature traces. The red line is the actual global temps. since about 1880. Black line is the CMIP 5 model average forecast when you put in CO2, volcanic eruptions, minute …
17 March 2016
NOAA: 10th Record Month in A Row. Temperature Off the Charts
February 2016 was the hottest month ever measured on Earth. The planet broke a heat record for the 10th month in a row in February and we broke it by a record amount as well. The heat was nothing short of amazing with Alaska averaging out at over 12 degrees above normal. That is nothing less than stunning. The odds that this warmth is part of a natural cycle have …
Irish Sunshine from Belfast to New York
St. Patrick’s Day is not as big a deal in Ireland as it is in America, but it was an unusually nice early spring day there today. Most of the sunshine was in the UK portion, (Northern Ireland) but most areas saw plenty of sun. The weather in New York City for the famous parade was much warmer, with sunshine and temps. near 16C (60F). Images are from the NASA …
14 March 2016
Coo Coo for Cocorahs
Do you know what cocorahs is? Many of your neighbors do. Thousands of folks across the U.S. report rainfall each day using a specially designed gauge. The gauge cost around 30$ and is VERY accurate. These rain and snow reports are used for river flood warnings, forecasting, and climate data, and are very important. You can find out more here: http://www.cocorahs.org/
NASA: February Temperatures Hottest Ever
NASA has released the February global temperature data, and the rumors that it would smash the record set just last month by an incredible margin are true. The global temp. was 1.35C above the average of 1951-1980. This passes last month’s record of 1.14C above that average. The overwhelming opinion of experts is that any rise above 2 degrees C will bring unexpected and serious consequences to our climate …
11 March 2016
Attributing Extreme Weather Events to Climate Change
My friend Heidi Cullen at Climate Central in Princeton has an excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times today. It’s about a new study released by the National Academies on attributing extreme weather events to climate change. The study itself is on my reading list for tonight, and you can read it yourself for free. Just click the image below. I know several of the researchers who worked on this …
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.