You are browsing the archive for January 2019 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
31 January 2019
Note to the Media: Getting Science/Weather Stories Right Matters Just As Much As Any Other
The cold hard scientific truth is that the polar vortex is 6 (plus) kilometers high and located south of Hudson Bay tonight. It never reached the American Midwest, and every story you’ve seen or read about it (except perhaps one or two notable exceptions) have been wrong. Indeed, the Washington Post is not the only one to post “polar vortex” headlines that were dead wrong this week. It’s turned into an …
29 January 2019
The Climate Threat is Much Worse Than You Think, But There’s Still Hope
I know a lot of people are tired of hearing the title of this post, but it’s true. The threat we face from climate change is a lot worse than you think it is. There is near unanimous agreement that we must strive to keep the Earth’s temperature from going above 2 degrees C from the pre-industrial times, and better yet would be holding it to 1.5 C. That’s not …
14 January 2019
Weather Satellites are Far More Vital Than You Think
I’ve written a lot here about weather satellites here, and how a decent forecast beyond three days would be impossible without them. They are indispensable to everyone from forecasters to firefighters to pilots. While you mainly see GOES (geostationary satellites) images on TV, I just finished a weathercast showing the image above from a satellite in Polar Orbit. I used it to show where the snow fell this weekend, but …
4 January 2019
Government Shutdown Impacts Biggest U.S. Atmospheric Science Meeting
The annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society starts Sunday in Phoenix. It’s the biggest meeting of the atmospheric science community in the U.S. and one of the biggest worldwide. In a normal year, thousands of meteorologists from NOAA (and other government agencies), many universities, and the private sector (including meteorologists in broadcasting like me) will share knowledge and listen to presentations from recent research. Most importantly, students who are …
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.