You are browsing the archive for Global Warming Archives - Page 6 of 9 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
7 November 2009
The Breathing Earth
Many people are surprised when they first see a graph of the carbon dioxide levels measured at Mauna Loa in Hawaii. The first question asked is why is it going up and down each year? The answer is that you are looking the Earth breathing! There is much more land in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern, and when spring arrives in the North, the growing plants suck CO2 out …
31 October 2009
Post Calls Out Senator Laughing Stock
When I wrote a post last month called What do Climate Scientists think of Senator Laughing Stock, I hesitated at pressing the publish key. I try to keep these posts about science and stay away from politics. What CO2 is doing to our climate is a purely scientific question. How we act to fix the problem is a political question. I stay away from political questions! James Inhofe, the senior …
29 October 2009
Why The Vanishing Polar Ice Cap Will Impact You
The folks at the National Snow and Ice Data Center have released some new data on the polar ice as we head into late autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. The ice pack is retreating at a rate of about 11.2% per decade, and Dr. Mark Serezze, the director of the NSIDC says that we are just a few decades away from a mostly ice free August in the Arctic Ocean. …
7 October 2009
What Do Climate Scientists Think About Senator Laughing Stock?
First of all, I write this from my hometown of Tulsa Oklahoma. I’m home because of a sudden illness in my family, and though I have not lived in Oklahoma in 25 years, it will always be home in my mind. That said, the national joke about Oklahoma used to be, and by all rights should still be, the roads. As my great uncle once put it after driving from …
5 October 2009
Is Climate Change Affecting Your Weather Now?? Yes
I have mentioned before the strange weather patterns recently and that a friend of mine at the Weather Channel has been looking into it in depth. It was Stu Ostro who first got me to looking at it from a climate perspective, and once he told me what to look for, I saw it showing up all over the place. You have to be careful about ascribing any weather event …
24 September 2009
Are The Southeast USA Floods Climate Change Related??
Usually when I am asked a question about whether a weather event was caused by climate change, I respond with the standard answer of “You cannot blame any individual event on climate change, you can only say whether climate change made it more likely to occur.” I see Hurricane Katrina blamed on Climate change frequently and the same applies. That said, what about the incredible flooding rains over the Southeast …
16 September 2009
If a Picture Paints A Thousand Words- Then Look at 3
NASA GISS has the Summer global temp. data online now. August 2009 was the Second warmest on record globally. The Northern Hemisphere meteorological summer of 2009 was the third warmest on record. Only 1998 was warmer. The reason 1998 was so warm is easily explained. The Pacific ocean was incredibly warm that year. The reason? The greatest El Nino event on record. That much warm water heated the surface temperature of …
10 September 2009
Extreme Ice Survey- The Pictures Tell The Story
I have linked to some of the excellent TED talks before in this space. This one is perhaps the best I have seen. There is an old saying that perception is reality. That seems to be the problem in regard to climate science. Many people think that scientists are still arguing over it. They are not. Getting that message out is one reason I started writing these ramblings about the …
5 September 2009
Climate News Going from Bad To Worse
A major study on the Arctic temperatures was published this past week in SCIENCE. It’s gotten a lot of press attention, and a huge amount of attention in the Science world. It’s not uncommon for those not familiar with the science to ask questions along the lines of “How can they possibly know what the temperature was 500 years ago! There were no thermometers!” If science education were better in …
26 August 2009
How Close We Came To an Atmospheric Catastrophe
A few weeks back there was a riveting summary in NATURE, of the science surrounding the Ozone hole. Quirin Schiermeier tells the story of how we averted an environmental catastrophe in the absolute nick of time. It’s also a great example of how looking at unexpected observations in a logical way, can lead to a better knowledge of how the planet works. First some background. While most people have heard …
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.